Chapter Text
This was so incredibly easy.
Or maybe Dream was just lucky, but it hadn’t even been two hours yet and he had already found so many good items at the last village in the savannah that now seemed so far away. Dream was pretty sure his friends were still at the village, stealing more of their hay bales and smelting their iron in the blacksmith’s ovens. That just gave him more time to find a lava pool. He had already gathered everything he needed to go to the nether. He was running in the fresh breeze, allowing himself to bathe in the freedom of being far ahead in the run when he saw another ruined nether portal close by. He rushed to it, feet barely touching the green grass and flowers.
The chest was everything he could have ever asked for. it had five gold bars which he saved for later, and an iron chest plate, as well as enough obsidian pieces, to actually finish the portal! Dream let out a laugh, this was too easy. He looked back to see if his friends had followed him, and they hadn’t. They were probably still back at the village, so he hurriedly put together the portal and placed a crafting table to build some flint and stone.
The portal lit up in a beautiful blue color, and Dream jumped right in. But to his surprise, he didn’t feel the usual cold sensation of the nether particles touching his skin. No, this feeling was warm, almost like he was engulfed in hot lava which almost burned his skin. He wanted to let out a yell, call for his friends and ask for help but it felt impossible with the pressure of the feeling of lava. The more he thought about it the more curious it became. Why was the portal blue again?
And why did he hear the sound of something blowing up?
Dream was stuck. He was stuck and everything hurt. He held in a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to hide from the heat and the bright lava wall and the dry air and the… sound of crying obsidian drops?
Dream took in another deep breath, but the dryness in his mouth made him cough. Everything hurt, but not in the same way as in the portal. Was he out of it?
He finally decided to open his eyes again, and his gaze was met with a small room that he had never seen before. A lava wall? Crying obsidian matched with the normal obsidian that made out the rest of the room. There was a sink with something red inside of it. Next to it, he saw a lectern and a chest, both filled with blood. In fact, the entire room was filled with dried blood all over, even the smell in the room was of said dried blood.
He looked down at his arms, and the view he was met with was something he could barely even believe. Orange clothes, skinny scarred arms? He let out a set of curse words and slumped back against the awfully hot obsidian walls.
“What on the earth is this?”
Christ, even his voice was awful. In fact, everything about him was awful. Why was he so weak? Why did every inch of his body hurt when he moved? Was the portal really so awful that he was spat out of it in such a horrible state? Something was wrong, so incredibly off. Dream was exhausted.
-- --- --
They had been at the village for a bit too long now, Sapnap concluded silently to himself. This run was going so well, but he had a feeling that if they stayed put and prepared too much then they would miss Dream and he would win. He had already made way too much process in such a small amount of time.
“Hey George, can you look at which direction Dream is at now?”
George got up from his seat in front of the blast furnace and nodded at Sapnap. He took out the shiny compass and tried looking for the direction of his friend, but when his brown eyes fell on the compass he couldn’t see the needle anywhere.
“Uh, guys? Slight problem.” Sapnap and Badboyhalo went to look at the compass in his hand.
“Where is the pointer?” Bad asked, his right hand reaching his chin in concentration.
Sapnap took the compass out of George’s hand and shook it. Nothing happened. “We have to call the game off, this is cheating.”
George gave him a look of disbelief.
“You really think this is cheating? It’s like Dream doesn’t even exist to this compass! I don’t think he’s hacked it.”
“Oh come on, George, we both know that he’s probably laughing his ass off somewhere, the guy knows all about cheating. I bet it’s a prank of some sort.”
While George and Sapnap continued to bicker, Bad took out his communicator and wrote a message to Dream asking where he was.
His friends noticed the message popping up and stopped talking, eagerly waiting for the response.
One minute went by, and no answer.
“He’s probably too busy to answer right now.”
“Busy fighting the dragon?”
“oh shut up”
George and Sapnap both giggled.
One minute turned to twelve, still no answer
The boys were getting more impatient than ever.
15 minutes, and George was pacing the room.
20 minutes and Bad had built a sword for everyone. Just for some extra protection.
30 minutes. 30 whole minutes.
Still nothing.
“We should go looking for him, maybe he’s in danger?”
“Good idea, Bad.”
George nodded along.
40 minutes and they were far away from the village, entering a rainy taiga forest. Still no sight or answer from Dream.
The team was getting nervous as they saw the sun start to set.
Sapnap’s patience was long gone, and he was aggressively fast in his pace. Everyone continued to take their communicators up to look for answers every minute passing, but no matter how many times the light from the communicators lit up they would still be left with the lack of any answer.
They had found some sheep a biome over and created a tiny hut for them to sleep in. Normally the hunts wouldn’t stay for this long, especially with no answer from their friend.
As they laid down to sleep, George was the only one to actually try and sleep. Bad and Sapnap both laid with their eyes open, waiting for an answer.
Where was Dream?
-- --- --
Dream sat still in the same spot for what felt like hours, just staring at the room not even daring to move and look into the chest even though the curiosity pulled at him oh so much. He was too hurt, too tired, too weak.
There was a sound of something falling to the ground, and he looked over to see one raw potato lying on the ground. Huh. Dream went over to grab it, ignoring the loud growling from his stomach. He stared at the raw potato in his hand with disgust, was this really supposed to be eaten? And where did it come from? The potato didn’t look to be poisoned or anything though, so he tried to take a bite of it just for him to spit it out before he could even think to swallow. Something inside of him straight out rejected the taste, and it felt like his tongue was even drier than before.
He threw the potato at the lava and watched as it burned and disappeared.
Dream had lost his mask. That much he did notice. He had no clue why or where it was, but a little part of him feared that it had something to do with the wall of lava in front of him.
Dream closed his eyes to try and sleep the hours away, but before he could even think of shifting to lay more comfortably, he heard the sound of redstone and two voices. He could recognize the voices, but he didn’t know from where.
He sat up more straight, impatiently waiting for whatever was next to happen.
The lava dropped!
Slowly but surely he watched as the lava fell away, revealing two people on the other side of the lava wall. They were talking, but it was hard to hear their hushed voices from this far away.
Dream’s eyes fell on those of one of the men, and the man waved. Dream just stared back.
The man stepped up on a bridge, and Dream continued his stare as the person walked along the floating bridge with ease. In one hand he held something that looked like a water bottle, and in the other, he held a suitcase.
Netherite blocks went up with a loud scraping sound which made Dream cover his ears, and the man finally got close enough for Dream to see him well enough. He was sure that he recognized him, but he didn’t know from where. Until the man opened his mouth.
“Hello again, Dream.”
It was… Quackity?