"One, two, three, four." He counts, struggling.
"One, two, three, four." He repeats, hands shaking.
"One, two, three..." His breath catches in his throat and tears well in his eyes once more.
"Help." He faintly whispers. His hands shakily move up and his fingers get lost tugging at his hair with the small bit of strength he has. He rocks back and forth in his seated position; his breathing is choked and uneasy. "Please." His whispers echo in an empty room. His knees are soaked to the bone with tears, he's been crying for forty minutes what felt to him like forty hours. "One, two, three, four." He counts again, breathing in, failing to steady his breath. "One, two, three, four." He breathes out. "Please." His weak voice croaks through his quiet sobs. His uneasy breathing quickens and his vision falters, "please." he quietly cries out. He loses consciousness, passing out where he sat on the floor.
"Hey, inmate! Get up and eat your grub, your death is not on my hands if you starve." Sam yells from behind the immense wall of lava separating him from Dream. Dream stretches his aching bones, turning over and sitting up. He looks around to find today's potatoe. He weakly got up and trudged over to the potatoe, picking it up and hobbling closer to the wall of lava. "Thanks Sam, I just love hearing how much you care." He throws his sarcastic and snarky remark to have it land on Sam's deaf ears. "It's fucking raw." Dream mumbled in disgust and places the potatoe near the wall of lava to cook. A minute on one side and a minute on the other, Dream eats the potatoe ignoring the crunch of all uncooked parts.
"It's day four, minute 13 since I woke up." Dream mumbles mundanely staring at the clock plastered on the wall. He sits against the wall opposite to that of the clock, his knees drawn up to his chest and his hands tapping atop them. He lets his head lightly thump against the obsidian wall behind him. "Tick-tock, tick-tock." He mindlessly mimics the only sound he can hear other than the lava flowing beside him. "Minute 14 since I woke up." He sighs.
Dream changes his seating position to lie against the cell's chest and stares at the lava. Its endless flow has him mesmerized. He slowly gets so lost in the bright visuals and endless motion that he mimics the popping and slumps against the chest. Dissociation takes his mind totally losing all sense of surrounding in the ever-changing red, orange, and yellow hues. The chest becomes an uncomfortable place to lie against and he mindlessly shifts, over and over until the discomfort becomes too difficult to disconnect from. He gets up rubbing the places that had gone numb and stretching out his stiff under-stimulated body.
He glances at the clock, "24 minutes since I woke up, hm? Time is way too slow when you're bored." Dream says and walks to the sleeping bag he barely uses. "Why do you never use this? It's comfier than when you sleep on the floor." He asks himself, sitting down on the sleeping bag. "I don't know Dream; I guess it never occurred to me that the floor was so fucking hard." He spits at himself. Even when he speaks to himself he's snarky and sarcastic. "When am I gonna get outta here?" Dream asks himself. "If you don't know how am I gonna know, we're the same person, idiot." Dream answers, losing hope in creating conversation with himself. He lies back on the sleeping bag, and turns to the side. "It's been a while but I hadn't realised until now that there is crying obsidian here, within reach." Dream says with an absent mind reaching out to touch the crying obsidian. It's warm and does not hurt him to touch it; he turns his hand to see it painted with bright pink molten sludge. He wipes it on the wall surrounding the crying obsidian and retracts his hand.
"There's a lot of things you don't notice, Dream. " A voice that is, but isn't his own, chimes from behind Dream, petrifying him where he lays. Dream waits to hear movement, but nothing can be heard over his heartbeat pounding in his ears and the popping of lava. Every thing drops silent, the clock is not ticking, the lava's flow has stopped, the only thing Dream hears is his own heartbeat and the faintest sound of the buzzing of a glow effect. "How long are you going to take to turn around?" The voice asks Dream. It takes dream a moment, he shifts and sits up still facing the wall opposite to that of the voice.
Dream turns in his seat and his eyes land on an unearthly sight. There stands a literal god, halos crossing its face, three sets of wings stretches out from behind it. The sound of glow buzzing is louder, as Dream traces his eyes over every inch of this godly beast before him. "Staring at me is going to get you nowhere." The being says and approaches Dream, in doing so Dream shifts back trying to keep the distance between him and this being. "Sam, S-Sam! Sam Help!" The being approaches Dream, it unhappily stares him dead in the face and Dream's breath catches in his throat, he is unable to breathe. Dream is dragged up the wall his feet dangling just above the floor. He grasps at his throat trying to alleviate the pressure that's restricting his breathing. "You feel this? Rather, do you remember this feeling?" The being bridges the gap and slams its monstrous hand against Dream's chest knocking the wind out of him. Dream drops his hands and coughs trying to catch his breath in his windless lungs. "Who the fuck are you?" Dream asks through coughs and pants. "Oh, me?" The being looks at him and tilts it head with a glowing maniacal stare.
"Isn't it obvious?" The being removes its hand from Dream's chest but he remains pressed up to the wall, he takes deep breaths with the alleviated pressure. "If it was obvious I wouldn't have asked, or was that not obvious to you?" The being looks at Dream with frustration, "After all these years I forget how arrogant you are." The being brings a claw up to press up against Dreams chin. "I. I am XD. It didn't take George this long to know who I was." Dream shakes his head away from the grasp of XD's claw, "What the fuck did you do with George?!" Dream spat; frustration and worry seeping through his words. XD grabs Dream's face in its claws, "I wouldn't struggle this much if I were you." XD chuckles and its head twists seemingly detached from its neck, "You're in no position to be asking questions. George is safe." Dream struggles kicking his feet in the air and trying to push off against the wall to no avail. "I'll be the judge of that when I get out of here." Dream says trying to push XD's claw off his face, his struggling only digs XD's claw deeper into his skin.
XD releases Dream's face and draws its claw back to slash Dream's abdomen. The slash leaves four deep gashes across his chest and stomach. Dream cries out in pain and looks down to see his blood seep through untouched clothes, "How the-" he asks as he grips his wounds. "We can't have the guards replacing your clothes, you don't deserve that courtesy." XD turns and Dream drops to the floor with a thump, still gripping his wounds. Dream hisses in pain as he takes his shirt off to reveal the deep gashes that are trickling with blood.
XD turns back to Dream and walks closer to him. Dream tries backing up but only hisses in pain as he straightens his back against the wall, "You're not even fighting back," XD says and glares at Dream's wounds and kneels down to have a closer look. "How" Dreams hands are forced away from his wounds and XD brings its monstrous claw to his wound and slowly digs its hand into Dream's abdomen, "pathetic." XD finishes its sentence. Dream screams out in pain, and struggles again the invisible restraints holding his hands. XD chuckles lowly, "Ooh, that's gotta hurt." It swiftly retracted its claw from Dream's wounds, blood spurting as Dream cries out in pain again. The blood drips to the sleeping bag below Dream, XD gets up from its kneeling position and Dream looks up to it.
"Heh, guess you can't get another arrogant word out now," XD says and brings its bloody claw to its face. XD looks to its claw and back to Dream, its claw is lowered to its stomach and a serrated grin opens up under the shadow of its cloak. The mouth opens and a glowing red salivating snake like tongue appears from behind the teeth. XD's tongue licks at the blood on its claw. Dream coughs up blood as he throws his body to the side to vomit from the sight, his contracting abdominal muscles and stomach can be seen from his gaping gashes. XD laughs and its abdominal mouth closes, it watches Dream carefully as he wipes his mouth and grips his wounds with his freed hands.
"You taste disgusting by the way." XD chuckles and brings its foot to step on Dream's hands pressing them against the wounds, "Silly Dream, you need to put pressure on those wounds." XD chuckles. "Stop." Dream weakly demands as he pushes his hands up against XD's foot. "Oh sorry, what was that? I couldn't hear you." XD stomps its foot down against Dreams hands and wounds making Dream cough up more blood and rive in pain. "Please." Dream begs but XD ignores his request.
Dream feels his head start to spin and the room goes black, XD retracts its foot and maniacally twists its head and waves at Dream as he passes out. "Goodnight Dreamie." XD chuckles and disappears. The cell resumes, the lava's popping and the clocks ticking is heard once more.
