I

He woke up to the sound of wind rushing outside of windows and metal wheels scraping against tracks. A train. He was slouched on the seats of a cold, metal train with only empty shadows seated next to him. They were shades of people that may have been at one point, but were scattered by time and emotion. They looked as dead as dead could be, he realized, and he was sitting among them.

Wilbur jolts up from his seat, stumbling from the movement of the train. He felt the sleeves of his leather trench coat, then the fleece of his jumper. They seemed real enough. The coat still had the rough texture of dried fruit from the foreign lands Phil would tell him about, while the sheep's wool still felt like a cotton cloth blotting blood away after sparring with Techno. But then the strands were cut off, and his hand sunk into flesh. A large gash was carved into his stomach, staining his sweater a deep red, yet no blood flowed out of it. It just existed, as if it was a mark he was born with.

He could reach in and feel his stomach and intestines and pull them out if he wanted, just to see what was inside. He could yank his own heart out of his chest cavity and stare at like he was using his own body as a cadaver. There would be no point in it, though. Nothing would be moving, especially not his heart. His heart would never beat again. He was dead, after all.

A giggle escapes his mouth as he reached his hand up to brush his hair out of his eyes. He's dead. He's actually dead. L'Manburg, Tommy, Schlatt, Tubbo, the presidency, the crater he left in the wake of his decisions, all of that is behind him, and he's dead. It's strange, because somehow he has never felt more alive than he did in this very moment, surrounded by others like him. Gone. Dead.

The train suddenly screeched to a halt, sending him flying to the floor. He felt no pain shoot up the shoulder that he landed on, just the gentle pressure of the ground. It was like he was laying in the grass back home. He almost wanted to stay there, but the train doors opened before he could live in the feeling for more than a moment. The shadows glided towards the doors, passing through him as if he wasn't even there. He smiled, picking himself off the floor, walking through the doors, and minding the gap that separated him from the train platform outside.

As soon as his boots met the concrete ground of the platform, the train behind him whizzed away, disappearing into the inky darkness of the very tunnel it came from. Wilbur paid it no mind, even when the momentum threatened to pull him back onto the tracks along with the thick purple smoke that swirled near his feet and in the air. He was too busy basking in the glory of the tunneled platform around him. It was entirely made of individual stone bricks, with a rounded ceiling that stretched only a few meters above his head. The entire structure was held up by thick metal poles and illuminated by old lamps hanging from the ceiling. Their light was more red than orange or yellow, blanketing the room in the same comfort as a child's night light.

Phil would always tell them that monsters hated red when he was little; the burning redstone torch placed gingerly at his bedside would keep him safe throughout the night so that they could never reach him. It always seemed to work, as each morning he woke up wrapped in warm cotton blankets and a dull crimson glow. Though he would never admit it, he kept the practice up until the day he died. Red always brought him comfort, from the dyed wool of his lucky beanie to the stained leather belt of his revolutionary uniform to the wrappings of the TNT he used to destroy the corpse of the nation he once built. Anywhere was home to Wilbur so long as it was bathed in red, and so home this would be.

He walked through the shadows that milled about the platform, who wandered and out of the walls as if they weren't even there. Their presence felt like a cool breeze in the summer, and Wilbur couldn't help but laugh. He sat down on one of the concrete benches that lined the back wall and basked in the peace of it all. There was nothing to do. No tyrants to kill. No countries to lose hope in. No annoying sidekicks to scold. There were just the train tracks, the dim light, and Wilbur.

He felt nothing but joy for the first time.

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(Well hello there. It's been a hot minute. I posted this on ao3, so I figured, eh, fuck it. Might as well throw it on here too. My first posted fic after five years still somehow being a Minecraft youtube fanfic seemed poetic, so here why not put it where it all started. Thank you so much for reading!)