*originally written and posted to ao3 on March 6, 2021

You'd heard of Dream.

How could you not have? He was a tyrant, a force of mass destruction. You had heard the stories. You know exactly what he's capable of, the things he's done.

And you had heard of L'Manberg. An independent nation crushed beneath the heel of its oppressors. You remember hearing the names of the soldiers in passing stories, but you don't remember many of them.

And you knew about Pandora's Vault.

That was the whole reason you came to visit the land that used to be home to Dream SMP. It was fascinating. A prison, made to be inescapable, holding only one prisoner, who had actually managed to escape. He'd destroyed everything as soon as he was out. The land, the people, everything. Dream had razed it all to the ground.

There were survivors, sure. After all, someone needed to stay alive to tell the story. You vaguely remember some of their names; Technoblade, Captain Puffy, and Philza, among others. You've even met some of them before on your travels. You've asked about Dream, about the prison, and they all give you the same bitterly sad look, ruffle your hair, and tell you "sometimes it's best to forget."

You don't like forgetting things. You want to know.

Which is why you travelled here in the first place. You wanted to see for yourself the destruction that had been caused here a few years back.

You walk along an old rickety wooden path. There is a slight divot along the middle of it, as if hundreds of pairs of feet have worn down the wood over the years. It's a common path for travellers, although there are many who avoid it. Walking through the ruins is considered bad luck.

You follow the path and eventually arrive at a small hill. You reach the crest and pause at the top.

It's so much worse than you imagined.

Below you stretches a sea of craters, each one deep and black, as though a giant had stubbed out a cigarette in the ground. Stone walls stand alone along the edges of the craters, the remains of buildings that once proudly reached for the sky. Red vines curl around the craters and jab into the ground as if trying to suck out the life from the earth itself. The vines protrude from a hole in the centre of the mess, pulsing with a crimson glow. The destruction spreads to a snow biome way in the distance. The wooden path is the only thing that remains. It stretches over the craters to form a safe bridge for passing travellers, as though someone fixed it up after the initial damage was caused. It's a complete and utter wasteland.

Hesitantly, you continue along the path. Far ahead, a large black structure looms over the land. You recognize it immediately. Pandora's Vault. You'd seen pictures of it before.

As you walk through the ruins, you can't help but marvel at the destruction. Some of the old walls are even taller than the buildings in other cities you've been to. This place was once a bustling metropolis full of life, and now it's all gone. You can't help but wonder how much love and work went into each building, how much effort the people spent to build these, only for it to be stripped away to nothing but the foundations.

The thought almost makes you sick.

You grow closer and closer to the prison. It's imposing, a giant black fortress made from obsidian. Indestructible, inescapable, and intimidating.

There is a gaping hole where the front wall once was.

You stare at it in wonder. You knew the prison had been partially destroyed in Dream's escape, but you had no idea it was this bad. How had he managed to do such a thing to a place like this?

You quicken your pace and finally reach the prison. The remains of a large nether portal stand inside, now an unlit archway of obsidian crumbling at the edges. The old broken foundation of a wall stands behind it. You step inside, debris and rubble crunching beneath your feet.

You eye the old nether portal warily as you step over the ruined knee-high wall behind it. Beyond that is an entryway, broken glass panels pockmarked across the floor. A front desk stands ruined in the middle. To the right is an open archway that leads to another room. The ceiling is caved in here, allowing the sunlight to peak through the shadows. You walk through the room and come to another doorway. You look down and your heart skips a beat. Below you is a long pool of bubbling lava.

You glance around the room you're in. A lever sticks out on the wall near your shoulder. On a whim, you pull it down.

A loud grinding sound meets your ears, like the redstone contraption it's connected to hasn't been used in ages and is working extra hard to achieve its purpose. Finally, a long stretch of flooring rises up from the lava and stops in front of you.

You're hesitant to step on it, as the redstone seems old and unreliable, but you do anyway. The floor holds. You walk down the length of black floor, wondering how on earth Dream managed to escape from this place.

You arrive in another room. A long staircase spirals above you. It's broken off near the top, next to where a large hole gapes in the ceiling. A white quartz vault door stands across from you, and two levers stick out of another wall. The handle of one of them is broken. A button sits between them.

You walk up to the wall. You press the button and then pull one of the levers, as if you already knew what to do.

The quartz vault door opens, the redstone contraption groaning in complaint after so many years of being unused. You walk towards it. You have to admit, the design of this place is impressive. It would probably be quite the sight if it hadn't been destroyed. You idly wonder who built this place, and who the warden was. What happened to them after Dream's escape?

You make it through the quartz doorway and then skitter backwards, heart pounding. Below you is a long, long drop to the floor below. You could have died if you hadn't been paying attention.

You turn around and walk back to the previous room. The broken handle of one of the levers lies among the debris. Luckily, there's still enough of the handle left attached that you can grasp it and pull it down. Beyond the quartz door, a floor rises up.

You step back through the quartz and onto the floor. Prison cells line the walls. It's eerie, being here and knowing that someone powerful and dangerous destroyed it. Maybe people died here during Dream's escape.

That idea makes you tread a little bit slower on the dark floor. You could be walking on someone's deathbed. You shudder at the thought.

Walking down the corridor, a feeling of déjà vu washes over you. It's not uncommon for you; in fact, just about everyone you've ever met has told you that you have the worst memory of anyone, and you're inclined to agree with them. You constantly feel like you're forgetting something, but no matter how hard you try, you can never recall it.

You feel as though you've walked these halls before. Tied to that is an instinctual feeling that you need to run away from this place as fast as you can.

But you tough it out and keep going. The rows upon rows of cells eventually come to an end and you reach a new room. The wall between the hall and the room has also been destroyed, just like everything else in this place. The ceiling here is not caved in, leaving it in a dim eerie glow from the sun behind you. You bring a torch out of your bag and light it.

You almost regret giving yourself a new source of light. The floor here is black, so it's difficult to see, but a large stain of reddish brown is splattered on the floor. A sword is jabbed in the ground in the middle of the stain with an enchanted netherite helmet hanging on the pommel. Flowers are placed at the base of the sword. Fresh ones, as if they'd just been picked a few days ago. It's as if someone came back to this place just to set up a memorial of sorts for whoever died here and keeps coming back to pay their respects.

If you wanted to know what happened to the warden, it seems you've found out.

That thought makes you sad, although you can't explain why. You skirt around the little makeshift grave and walk to the opposite wall. More levers and buttons are waiting for you to push them.

You reach out and pull the lever on the right. Another doorway opens and you step through. You're oddly hesitant to leave the little memorial that's been made here. Perhaps you can go pick some flowers for it and come back later.

The next room is absolutely destroyed. The obsidian walls have been completely torn up, although the floor and ceiling remain. You walk along the floor. You can't help but think that a water-filled tunnel was here once, even though you should have no idea what this place used to be like. You're glad there's no water, anyway. You never liked water.

Another room greets you at the end of the path. A doorway there leads to a pit of glowing lava. Someone had built a stone bridge across to the other side. Cracks riddle the stone, which makes you hesitant to walk across it, but you step on it anyway. It holds your weight, at least. A few pebbles break off and fall to the lava below as you walk. You hear them sizzle as they burn.

The bridge ends, leading you to a staircase that leads upward. You make your way up the steps. Part of you is suddenly tempted to leave before you make it to the main holding cell, but you've made it this far. You won't turn back now.

Another small room greets you at the top of the stairs. Beyond it through an archway is another pit of lava with another stone bridge leading across it. You hesitantly poke your head through the arch and look up. The ceiling here is destroyed. For some reason, you thought there would be lava pouring from the ceiling here, but there's obviously no way for that to happen anymore, even if it had done that once.

You look straight across at the main holding cell. Oddly enough, the idea of going in there is even more nerve wracking than walking through the unlucky ruins.

Still, you walk across the bridge all the same, suddenly determined to see this little journey through to the end. You just want to stand there. You want to stand in the footsteps of the person who had caused this destruction. You're not sure why.

You pause at the edge of the bridge. You take a deep breath and step into the cell.

It's a small room with obsidian walls. There's nothing special about it, it seems. Not until you raise your torch to see better and catch sight of something in the corner of the room, near a small hole of water in the floor.

A long streak of dried reddish brown blood stains the black floor, trailing from the middle of the room to the edge of the water hole. The dried puddle is biggest there, like someone was dragged there and left to die bleeding. You bend down and hold your torch closer to the floor. The blood streaks back away from the water hole and off the edge of the cell where the lava pit starts, followed by crimson footprints. More bloody prints pace back and forth across the cell.

You squint. Words are scrawled in green paint on the wall over the large bloodstain. You hold your torch lower to read it.

Here lies Tommy. He died doing what he loved.

Being a FUCKING PEST :)

You stare at the sign. The smiley face seems a lot more sinister than it should, like its two little beady eyes are glaring right into your soul, reading your mind, dissecting your thoughts one by one. You find yourself staring at it as fear grips your heart. You feel dizzy, as though you're about to lose consciousness. You shake it off as best you can. You have a bad habit of passing out and doing things you don't remember, and the sight of this strangely sinister smiley face seems to edge you towards losing consciousness.

You look away from the words and stare at the blood instead. You stand there for who knows how long, trying to understand. Trying to understand what was going through Dream's head when he destroyed everything in this city and killed a person here. Trying to understand why he had done everything he did to get himself landed in here in the first place. Trying to understand who this Tommy person was and why they were here with Dream.

Trying to understand why everything feels so fucking familiar.

That feeling of déjà vu hits you again and you strain your memory as hard as you can, chasing the forgotten things in the back of your head that you've been trying to recall for years. The name Tommy is so familiar. Logically, you know you probably just read it in a book somewhere when reading about L'Manberg, but your heart knows otherwise. You know you had some kind of connection to this place, these people. You just wish you could make sense of it.

You turn on your heel and march your way out of the cell. You can't stay here any longer. You never should have come here.

You're practically sprinting by the time you reach the corridor of cells again. You don't know what's come over you, but you feel like you need to leave. You can't explain why it feels like you've been here before, but whatever the reason, you don't want to find out. You need to go, now.

As you leave the prison, you take a deep breath. You hadn't realized how difficult it had become to breathe in there, crushed by the weight of the memories you don't remember. You sigh and start making your way back to the mainland, extinguishing your torch along the way.

Once on the wooden path again, you start in the direction you came from, intent on returning to the last city you stopped at before you travelled here. You have no need to be here anymore.

You keep your eyes on the ground as you walk along the path. You refuse to look at the destruction of the land. But as you walk, you catch sight of a small splash of colour to the side. You look up.

A small hill still stands near the path. One side of it is flat. Two doors stand in the side, one hanging half off its hinges. Above the doors stand a couple of signs, both burned to hide the words that were once written there. Outside the doors are a few flowers planted in the dirt.

Another wave of familiarity hits you and part of you wants to leave before you can feel any worse, but you push that aside. You step off the path and onto the dirt. The flowers sway in the breeze. You walk carefully to avoid crushing any of them beneath your feet. This place feels... important. Like you once knew someone who lived here.

You gaze at the doors and the little home that had been made inside the hill, not chasing your memories like usual, but just letting them pass through like dandelion seeds in the wind. You can't grasp any of them, but you feel as though you get the gist of it. You were once friends with the person who lived here. And the flowers—you planted those, hadn't you? You still don't know why, though.

You look down at the flowers. They look thirsty. You reach into your bag and bring out a canteen of water. You're usually afraid of water, but you always keep some on you, just in case it's needed. You pour some water onto the flowers. You feel a little better now, having done something good here. The flowers seem to bloom a little more already.

You tuck your canteen back into your bag and turn your gaze to the sky. The sun is setting already. You must have spent more time in the prison than you thought.

You give the dirt hut one last glance, hesitant to leave it behind, before you return to the path and keep walking. You feel a little more at peace, somehow, after seeing the small home built in the dirt hill. At least that wasn't destroyed.

As you walk, you let your mind wander. You wish you could have seen this place during its prime. You wonder who all lived here a few years ago. You'd heard that Philza had a few sons, one of them being Techno (well, maybe—you can't remember if that's true or not. You've never had the best memory, after all) but you don't know if any of the other ones survived. You get a bad feeling that they didn't.

Something makes you stop in your tracks. You can hear something. A very faint sound swims through the air. You can't quite tell where it's coming from.

You keep walking, and it gets a little louder as you go. You come to realize that it's a song. You walk a little faster, eager to find out the source.

A small scene comes into sight. A circle of flat ground stands near the path, surrounded by a crater like someone had tried to destroy it but some unseen force was protecting it. A wooden bench sits on the ground. The song plays softly from a jukebox next to the bench. The bench looks a bit old, its chips and dents obvious in the light of the sunset. Other than that, it appears completely fine.

You stop and stare at the jukebox. You can't explain why, but you stray from the path and walk to the bench. You're half afraid it will collapse under your weight, but you sit down and the wood holds. You scoot over to one side of the bench. Your instincts tell you to leave room for someone else to sit, although there's no one else around here for miles. However, you resign yourself to taking up only one side of the bench.

You sit there and gaze out at the sunset. It's quite beautiful from here. The orange light illuminates the wasteland around you, casting shadows from the remains of the buildings. This is truly the perfect vantage point to watch the sunset from. If you lived here, you would sit here every night and watch it, listening to that song playing on the jukebox.

"It's pretty, innit?"

You jump and nearly fall right off the bench. Clutching your chest, you whip your head around to see who spoke.

Another person sits on the bench with you. You didn't even notice them sneak up on you. He wears a uniform of some sort, with white pants, tall black boots, and a midnight blue coat over a white shirt and red sash. Despite the formal uniform, he sits slouched in his seat like he doesn't care what anyone thinks of him. His curly blond hair shifts in the breeze. He looks young—too young to be wearing a war uniform, that's for sure.

You open your mouth to respond, but your voice abandons you. Something looks off about this kid. It takes you a moment to notice it. His skin has a greyish tint to it. His eyes are flat and dead when you thought they should be bright and lively. His entire body has a transparency to it that allows the sunlight to shine right through him. He's a ghost.

"You're a ghost," you say bluntly, unable to think of anything else to say.

The kid scoffs. "Figure that out yourself, dumbass?" His words are scathing, but his tone is much softer than you had expected it to be.

"But you're so young," you whisper, a little horrified. Had Dream killed children, too?

"I'm not that young!" the ghost complains. "Not much younger than you were, at least. And I fought in a fuckin' war, I think I deserve a little respect."

You almost want to laugh at this kid's reaction. The fact that he's dead isn't what's bothering him—it's the fact that someone called him too young to die.

"Sorry," you say. You straighten yourself out in your seat. This kid's face looks so incredibly familiar, which isn't a surprise at this point. Everything in this place seems to have brought some unwanted memories to the surface, even if you haven't grasped them yet.

You look back out at the sunset. The ghost kid does the same. You're curious about this ghost, and you want to ask questions, but you don't know if that would be disrespectful or rude, considering he's dead.

You decide to risk it. "How did you die?" you ask quietly.

The ghost turns to you and stares with its dead eyes. "You really don't remember, do you?" he whispers.

"Remember what?" you ask.

The ghost scoffs. "God damn, I should have figured Dream woulda done a number on you. He always liked fuckin' around with people's heads. I mean, he was screwing with you long before he killed me. Course he would have messed you up this bad."

"What do you mean?" you ask. This ghost is implying that you knew Dream once, that you'd spoken to him before. You don't remember such a thing, but... what if it's true?

The ghost sighs. "It's nothing. You should probably just forget about it. You're good at doing that." His voice had turned bitter, but you're pretty sure the bitterness isn't directed at you.

You turn back to the sunset. You feel as though you've sat here before, listening to this song, watching this sunset on this bench. Memories swim through your head, just out of reach. You want to remember.

You open your mouth to ask a question, but the ghost beats you to it.

"Ranboo, do you remember how Tubbo died?"

You freeze.

"How do you know my name?" you whisper.

The ghost looks over at you, and the sad smile on his face, on Tommy's face, is so unlike him that you want to grab his shoulders and shake him and demand that he tell you everything. Everything that happened here, how he died, how this strange-yet-familiar person Tubbo died, what Dream did, and what you had to do with it.

Tommy just shakes his head. "Tubbo misses you, by the way," he says, that sad smile still on his face. "Despite what you did to him."

"What did I do?" you ask. You need to know.

"Well, it wasn't you, exactly," Tommy says. "It was Dream, but he used you to do it."

"Do what?" you demand, more desperation in your voice than there was before.

Tommy shrugs. "Look around you. What do you think?"

You do look around you. The destruction, the craters, everything... was it partially caused by you?

"I couldn't have," you mumble in disbelief. "I... I couldn't have—I wouldn't—"

"It doesn't matter anymore, does it?" Tommy scoffs. "I mean, what's done is done. Can't exactly reverse it."

You take a deep shuddering breath and realize there are tears in your eyes. They sting against your skin and you hurriedly wipe them away. How could you have been so blind? How did you not realize sooner that you were part of this destruction?

Tommy claps you on the shoulder. His ghostly hand is cold. "Don't worry about it, bud. Can't change it now. Besides, Dream ain't coming back here. He's got better things to do than hang around a bunch of ruins."

You train your gaze on the ground. You refuse to believe you had anything to do with this carnage.

"How did you die?" you ask again. You need to know. You need to know if you're the one who killed him.

Tommy's ghostly form flickers. For a moment, a very brief moment, the war uniform is gone, replaced by a red and white t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Bright red blood mats his hair to his forehead and trickles down his face, dripping onto the bandanna tied around his neck that barely hides a handprint shaped bruise. A black eye stands out on his pale face. He looks much less like a soldier and more like a kid who'd gotten beaten down, a kid whose life was snuffed out before its time.

His form shifts again and he's suddenly back in his uniform. "It wasn't you, if that's what you're asking," he sighs. "It was Dream. I got stuck in the prison with him. I don't know exactly what happened after he killed me. Or even before that, y'know. I don't remember a lot from my life." He lets out a laugh. "I guess that's something we have in common, hey, big man?"

A half-hearted laugh leaves your mouth. You appreciate that Tommy is trying to joke even in this morbid situation. You wouldn't expect anything else from him.

"Oh, and thanks," Tommy says. "For the flowers outside my house. Tubbo said you planted them after I died. It was a nice thing to see when I came back. Y'know, as a ghost."

You nod in acknowledgement instead of responding. You don't really trust yourself to speak for fear that you may burst into tears. You don't remember much, but you feel something when Tommy mentions Tubbo. You feel like you should know who that is, like maybe you were friends once.

A thought pops into your head. "Phil is your father, right?"

Tommy visibly tenses at the name. He laughs nervously. "I guess you could say so. I mean, sort of. I never really... Never really considered him my dad. I never had that kind of family relationship with him. Hell, I'd consider Sam more of a father than him."

At the name Sam, you recall the little makeshift grave inside the prison, the one with the sword and the helmet and the flowers. You absently wonder if you had helped kill Sam, since Dream was apparently using you for his escape. You cringe at the thought. You don't know who Sam is, but you're pretty sure he was a nice guy.

"Techno's still kicking, isn't he?" Tommy asks. "God, Phil would lose it if his favourite son figure died."

"His only son figure," you mutter under your breath.

Tommy snorts. "Yeah, guess he has to be the favourite now. Not that Wilbur ever had a chance at that."

"Yeah, he's still alive," you answer. "I don't think anyone could kill him if they tried."

Tommy grins. "And people have tried. That pig is fuckin' indestructible."

You fidget with your sleeves. You hesitate, but you eventually decide to ask.

"Who's Tubbo?"

Tommy's face falls. "He's... he's my best friend. You were friends with him, too." Tommy furrows his brow. "I think he said you two were platonically married or something."

You can't help the laugh that bubbles up in your chest. "Platonically married?"

The grin is back on Tommy's face. "Yeah. You two had a lot of fun back then." His smile stiffens. "I wish I coulda been there to see it all. I was trapped in the prison with Dream while you two got married."

You feel a pang of guilt. "I'm sorry."

Tommy shrugs. "Eh. No point thinking on it now."

"I guess." You stare out at the sunset. It's almost completely disappeared below the horizon by now. "Did... did I kill him?"

You're not even sure why you asked. You really don't want to know the answer.

The clench of Tommy's jaw and the way he turns his gaze to the ground is answer enough. An awful feeling of remorse overwhelms you. Tears sting your skin as they slide down your cheeks. You wipe them away before they can hurt you more. You already have tear scars from a few years back, from an event you don't even remember. You wonder if those scars are from Tommy's death.

"I'm so sorry," you whisper.

"No big deal," Tommy says. "Like I said, it's done. Can't change it now."

"Still," you mutter. "I'm really, really sorry. I hardly remember him, but I never wanted to kill him."

Tommy squeezes your shoulder. "I know, big man. You never wanted to hurt anyone. I kind of admire that now. I wish everyone else here could have been a bit more like you. Would have avoided a lot of conflict that way."

You force the tears back and wipe the last of them from your face. Tommy seems much nicer as a ghost, much more chill, like he's made peace with the fact that he's dead. You know it will take you a while to make peace with it yourself, if you even remember this interaction after today.

The two of you fall into silence, the only sound the song playing from the jukebox. You still have so many questions. There are things you want to know about yourself, about Tommy, about Tubbo, about Dream.

But you don't ask any of them. You sit there and enjoy the peaceful moment. You don't know what to think of all these things Tommy has told you or the memories floating through the back of your mind, waiting for you to retrieve them. You almost wished you'd never come here, but at the same time, you're glad you did. You know things now. You don't know everything, but you know something. You need to write everything you just learned in your memory book as soon as you can. You don't ever want to forget any of this again. If you forgot about Tommy again after today, you'd never forgive yourself.

The sun finally dips below the horizon. You look over at Tommy to say you should probably leave, but he's not there anymore. He seems to have faded with the sunlight. The music still plays on the jukebox.

You don't want to leave without saying goodbye. You stand and scan the grass for flowers. You pick a few of them. Most of them are alliums, which feels like it should be significant, although you don't know why. You fish a ribbon out of your bag and tie the flowers together in a little bouquet. You lay the bouquet on the bench where Tommy had just been sitting. It's not much, but it'll do, you think.

You glance from the fading sunset to the bench and back again. You really should be going.

You heft your bag on your shoulder and walk around the bench to the wooden path. You take a deep breath before you start walking along it again, heading back to the city you had travelled from. Your mind races with everything you've remembered today, even though it's not that much.

You walk along the path. Something compels you to pause in your tracks. You turn to look back at the bench. The jukebox still plays its cheery tune. You swear you can see two transparent figures sitting side by side on the bench, facing the setting sun. Both wear the same outfit, the soldier uniform of L'Manberg. One of them holds the bouquet of flowers you had left.

You turn again and keep walking. If you ever meet any of the survivors from Dream's destruction again, you have some questions you want to ask of them.

And this time, you won't forget.

Hi! It's been *checks calendar* six years since I've updated anything on this site. Figured I might as well dust off my old account and cross post some of my stuff from ao3 to here. Is it still widely common to do author's notes on this site? idc, I'm doing it anyway. Anyway, if my ao3 readers get some little notes from me on some extra things about the universe of this oneshot, then who am I to deprive anyone reading this here of my inane rambling? I wrote this when I just got into dsmp so some things are definitely not accurate as I didn't know everything, but here are my notes from a couple years ago:

-how Dream managed to cause that much destruction and escape the prison is up to interpretation. he's a powerful guy, I feel like he could find a way.

-I don't know exactly how far the main area of the server stretches. I know Snowchester exists a ways away from the prime path, so maybe that's still intact.

-I don't know a lot about the egg since I'm still getting caught up on the lore, so I didn't include it much. maybe Dream somehow used it to destroy everything.

-the layout of the prison is a god damn nightmare. there was so much to focus on, I definitely got something wrong. I watched people's streams where they visited the prison, and I still didn't know how to write it exactly the way it is. I probably fucked it up beyond belief but honestly idc, i'm not here for continuity i'm here for ANGST

-Dream killed Sam during his escape. Sam repeatedly went back to the prison and tried to stop Dream until he lost his last life. Sam died trying to keep Dream locked up.

In any case, I'm going to keep cross posting some fics from ao3, just so they have a second home. More to come!