Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Today, March 14th, 2025, is a day that will go down in history. Thanks to the hard work of dozens of scientists, researchers, and engineers, Project Allium is about to be activated. The Project, led by Dr. Charles Apian, is the result of five years worth of—

Tommy rolled his eyes as his social worker, Henrietta, turned down the volume on the radio. All the other kids at school had been talking about this ‘project tulip’ for the past few months. You’d think that eventually, people would get tired of talking about it, given how incomprehensible most of the stuff was to the general public, but nooo. It was all ‘new element’ and ‘saving the world’ and honestly, Tommy couldn’t care less. It wasn’t as if anyone would listen to him even if he took interest. After all—

The sound of fingers snapping in front of his face jolted Tommy back to reality. “Hello? Thomas? Are you listening to me?”

Tommy narrowed his eyes at Henrietta “Yes.”

“Well, could you repeat what I just said, then?”

Silence. Tommy started mentally counting down.

“That’s what I thought. Try harder to pay attention, Thomas. Honestly, it’s no wonder you haven’t gotten adopted yet—”

There it was. Tommy couldn’t get through a conversation with Henrietta without something like this coming up. So far that day she’d mentioned his “terrible sense of fashion”, tardiness, inability to lift her bag (that was half his weight) into the trunk of the car, and general attitude as explanations for why Tommy was still in the system.

“—and speaking of adoption, that’s just what I wanted to speak to you about. Thomas, you’ve had second and third, and fourth and god knows how many changes. You have no idea how lucky you are that someone was willing to take you in at this age—”

“—I’m sixteen, not twenty—”

“—which is why you can not ruin this chance as you’ve done before. Am I clear?”

Tommy leaned back in his seat with his arms crossed, frowning. “None of that was my fault.”

And it hadn’t been. Not every person who was willing to foster a child was terrible, but a fair share of them (or their children— Tommy’d been framed more times than he’d like to count) were awful people, and even if they seemed nice at first there was always something. Henrietta didn’t seem to understand that.

“That’s what they all say. How can you explain the last house? That poor girl was covered in bruises.”

“I didn’t push her down the stairs, her brother beat her up and lied to the parents, I already told you. Does pushing someone down stairs really sound like something I’d do?”

“Yes,” Henrietta answered without hesitation. “I will admit I do think it was an accident, but roughhousing at the top of a staircase sounds exactly like you.”

“But—”

Tommy could see Henrietta’s jaw harden in the overhead mirror and immediately knew this was a bad day for her. He’d stepped too far over the line.

With a sudden jerk, Henrietta pulled the far over to the side of the bridge and turned around, staring at him.

Tommy chuckled nervously. “Ahaha, Henrietta ma’am, I think this is maybe against the law? And on a normal day I’m all for breaking laws but I don’t think you want to get a ticket—”

Henrietta’s cold brown eyes met Tommy’s blue ones. Henrietta leaned closer to him. At this distance he could smell her breath. It smelled like coffee. That explained this mood, then— Henrietta got pissy when she drank a lot of coffee, which was often, because she drank a lot of coffee when Tommy was frustrating her.

“Thomas Careful Danger Kraken Innit.”

Uh—oh. Pulling out the full name, then. Luckily, Tommy knew how to deal with that.

He smiled sweetly at her. “Henrietta Carol Smith.”

“That’s not funny, young man. You’re on thin ice.”

“Not funny? I thought it was pretty funny. That’s fifty percent of the people in this car.”

“THOMAS.”

Tommy flinched. It looked like she wasn’t going to drop it until he agreed to ‘behave’ or whatever that meant. “Fine, fine. I won’t pull anything.”

“Nothing, you hear me? Not a single incident. If I get wind of anything, well...I don't know what I’ll do, but it won’t end well for you.”

“Nothing. Even if they deserve it, which they probably will.”

Henrietta examined his face closely, searching for some hit of a lie, then leaned back, seemingly satisfied. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet...”

Her nose twitched. “...What’s that smell?”

Tommy sniffed as well. Now that someone mentioned it, the air did smell...off. Unnatural. But he didn’t want her to know he agreed with her.

“Yeah? I don’t smell anything. Must be old age getting to you. Gonna need glasses for your nose soon.”

“Why you—!”

And then the world exploded in green.

Tommy dropped to the floor of the car, mind reeling. What the fuck was that?! Why was there some sort of...well, Tommy didn’t know what it was, but it was very green, there was a lot of it, and from what Tommy could see from the inside of the car, it was moving very fast. Maybe a storm, and some sort of polluted dust that had gotten swept up in the wind. But if that was the case, why hadn’t there been something on the radio about the storm? There had only been that Project Petunia bullshit. Who even cares about Project Petunia, anyway?

He wasn’t scared. Definitely not. This kind of thing happened every day, he was a big man, he totally wasn’t curled up on the floor of the car shaking.

Definitely not.

All of a sudden, there was silence. Horrible, all-consuming silence— the kind that amplified every little sound a hundred times, so all he could hear was the beating of his heart and the rustle of his clothing against the floor. The car had stopped shaking— what kind of sudden storm made cars shake like that? Tommy didn’t know.

Was it safe to move yet, though? That was another thing Tommy wasn’t sure of. For one thing, Henrietta hadn’t stirred yet, so he presumed she didn’t want him to either.

Minutes passed. Still nothing from Henrietta, and at this point, Tommy felt that he’d rather die of green dust poisoning (or whatever that stuff was) than sit still for another moment. Frankly, it was a miracle that he had managed to stay quiet for that long— maybe even a new personal record.

He got to his feet shakily, dusted himself off, and looked out the window.

The world was shrouded in thick green fog. Tommy could see about five feet in front of the window, and then it was just...green. Like someone had poured pea soup over the city and then vaporized it. Some part of his mind dazedly wondered if the fog tasted like peas, as well. Going out to taste it would probably be a very bad idea. Henrietta could add it to her list of Very Bad Ideas By Tommy.

Speaking of Henrietta...she hadn’t said anything at all since whatever was going on had happened. Maybe they were both making personal bests today.

“Henrietta?” Tommy called out cautiously. “There’s something green outside.”

No answer.

“It looks like pea soup, but more radioactive. And floaty.”

Still no answer.

“I’m...I’m gonna go outside.”

Ok, what the fuck was up with her? Usually, she’d be all ‘no, no, Thomas, you can’t go outside, going outside to see the pea soup smoke is the reason you haven’t been adopted yet,’ but today she was...awfully quiet. Suspiciously quiet.

Tommy leaned over the back of her seat to try and see what was up and nearly fell on the ground again.

Henrietta was asleep. Or at least, she looked asleep, which was weird because Henrietta never slept. Ever. Tommy barely ever saw the woman blink, and she certainly never slept on the job— she drank far too much coffee to do so.

He had a feeling that something was very, very wrong, even more so than an unconscious social worker and some pea soup colored fog.

Oh, fuck, his social worker was unconscious. He’d be blamed for this one for sure.

Grabbing an umbrella that had been sitting in the passenger’s seat, Tommy poked Henrietta sharply in the side of her head, which (other than flopping limply onto its owner's shoulder) didn’t move. Ok, so she wouldn’t wake up at the slightest sound. Good to know.

Putting down the umbrella, Tommy grabbed her wrist, pressing two fingers to it to feel for a pulse. How much trouble would he be in if she died while in the same car as him? Probably a lot. Too much to think of at that moment. Even if it definitely wasn’t his fault this time— if Tommy’d had the power to make people pass out, he would have been using it long before this. Mostly for evil.

He could still feel her heartbeat, thank fuck. So Henrietta wasn’t dead...yet...and Tommy still had no clue what had happened, or why.

Looking out the window, he saw that the pea soup stuff had mostly dissipated. The air still had a faint green tinge, but nothing like what it had been a few minutes earlier. Tommy was suddenly struck with a brilliant idea.

He didn’t have to stay in the car at all! What was keeping him from leaving, Henrietta? She was out cold, and besides which, Tommy was almost eighteen. He could fend for himself. Why should he keep sitting there? This was the perfect chance. Before Henrietta woke up, he’d be gone. She wouldn’t miss a bit of money taken from her wallet, and he’d figure the rest out from there.

This was possibly the best escape plan he’d ever had. His last few had failed disastrously, but there was nobody to catch him this time. No more cruel social workers, no borderline abusive foster parents or ‘siblings’ who were perfectly happy to punch him in the gut. There was no way anything could go wrong, and then he’d be free.

Two minutes (and several furtive glances at Henrietta) later, Tommy was running down the highway hoisting a backpack full of clothes, dried food he’d found in the trunk, and Henrietta’s water bottle over his shoulder. He could feel the wind against his face, sharp but not painful— it was mid-March, and the weather was just beginning to warm up. Tommy didn’t know if he’d have had the courage to do this in winter.

It was as he dodged around a pale gray minivan near the bottom of the bridge the highway ran across that Tommy noticed anything odd— besides the now completely gone green fog, of course. All of the cars were at a complete standstill.

This wasn’t immediately a surprise to him. There had been some major traffic over the bridge due to an accident, that being one of the reasons Tommy had been nervous about Henrietta pulling over— people might have confused them for one of the cars in the wreck. What really caught his attention, however, was that none of the cars beyond the bridge had resumed movement. Aside from that, there had been no angry yells at Tommy to get out of the road. In fact, there were no voices at all.

For the first time that Tommy could remember in his sixteen years on the planet, there were no voices ringing through the air. Nothing. It was incredibly off-putting.

Nothing, indeed, except for the faint sound of many objects crashing into each other, coming from somewhere in the city that was out of his view. To Tommy, it sounded as if all the drivers in the city had simultaneously decided to let go of their wheels and crash into the first obstacle they could find. And as he kept walking past some kind of tollbooth and into the city, it became more and more obvious that that was exactly what had happened.

Tommy had to sit down in the middle of the road for a second. What was going on today? Green storms, unconscious social workers, and now, based on the numerous wrecks in various states of damage clustered around trees, buildings, and other cars, it seemed like today was crash-your-car-and-make-a-bunch-of-explosions-day. Oh, and there was a high school student lying on the sidewalk outside of a Starbucks. Fun.

The blonde got to his feet shakily. This was a lot to process— in fact, there was so much to process that he didn’t really know what to think about first.

Ah, well. Better forwards instead of back, right?

So onwards Tommy headed, down the street and past the high school student (he poked them with a stick to check if they were dead. They were not, but did not wake up). The further along he got, the worse the damage seemed to become, although it peaked a few blocks away from the bridge.

A bright blue car was flipped completely onto its back, pressed up against a few others. The occupants had evidently been thrown clear and were lying on the ground, unmoving.

Tommy rushed over to check if they were ok. All three of them only had minor scrapes and bruises, but they seemed to be in the same state Henrietta and the high school student were in—sleeping peacefully. Weird.

After making sure there were no fatalities in the area (there were none that he could see, although a lot of cars were on fire) Tommy continued on, getting progressively more freaked out as he walked. His situation was finally settling in—not that that helped him understand what was happening any better.

Holy shit I just ran away and everyone’s asleep and what the fuck what the fuck what the fu—

This really wasn’t good, although he didn’t quite know the extent of how not good it was. However, he felt like there was no turning back. He couldn’t just sit in the car and wait for when Henrietta woke up.

IF she wakes up, a voice in the back of his head whispered. She might never. She wasn’t nice to you but that’s because you deserved it, and if she doesn’t wake up it’d be your fault—

“Shut up,” Tommy mumbled to himself.

He’d finally reached a point where there weren’t any wrecks— the parking lot of some supermarket. The only disturbing thing was a woman who clearly had been on the way to her car with some groceries—shopping bags were strewn across the ground. An orange lay forgotten a few inches away from Tommy’s shoe.

“Fuck,” Tommy said aloud. “What the hell happened here?”

Chapter Text

Tubbo knew what had happened, and he was pretty fucking pissed about it.

Three years ago, Tubbo Underscore had been adopted by Charles Apian, back when nobody had any idea what Project Allium was, and Tubbo was only fourteen. Apparently, Doctor Apian’s late wife, Allium, had always wanted a third child to complete their family or something like that. So her husband had gotten Tubbo after she had died.

Not that Tubbo had ever felt related to his adopted father, or his new siblings, Max and Asha. Sure, everyone was nice to him, and he did like having a home—but they were always a little distant. Maybe it was because of their wife and mother. Maybe it was because they had trouble empathizing with his dyslexia.

Maybe it was because Tubbo was really fucking smart, even more so than Dr. Apian.

In the past year, Project Allium had blown up, and suddenly the kid’s father had been having to spend more and more time at work. Eventually, the three of them had been spending practically the whole day home without any adult supervision, and so Charles had come up with a great idea—bring the children to the lab!

For Max and Asha, this meant they could spend more time with their dad, and also take advantage of the superior wifi. For Tubbo, it meant he finally had access to the things he was interested in, and practically unlimited resources for causing trouble.

Over the next couple of months, the Project grew and Tubbo caused several explosions, along with creating a few gadgets that aren’t really important to the story. They probably had something to do with nukes.

Then, on January third, a little more than two months before the project was scheduled to be activated, Tubbo noticed something.

The element that powered the project, Essempite—it was having a strange effect on the people around it.

According to numerous tests, Essempite wasn’t radioactive, nor did it have any negative influence on animals (nobody had been willing to test it on a human)—but Tubbo noticed that the scientists and researchers who spent more time around it were experiencing drastic changes to their sleep schedules. For example, Dr. Apian, who spent nearly every waking second around the element—and he was having fewer and fewer of those seconds, for no apparent reason. Tubbo could have attributed it to the fact that as the deadline approached, Dr. Apian was working harder than usual—if it weren’t for the fact that the same thing was happening to the other scientists who worked around it, as well as Max, Asha, and all of the journalists who had come to the lab to report on the Project, and that the people who’d been sleeping the most were the ones who had the most exposure to Essempite.

After the third day in a row of walking around seeing the best scientists in the world napping on their desks, Tubbo brought it up with his adopted father.

“‘Scuse me—Charles?”

“What is it, Tubbo? Hurry up with whatever it is, though. I have to make some adjustments to the storage chambers.”

Tubbo shuffled around nervously. “It’s just that, ah, I’ve noticed that you and the others have been acting differently, and I was thinking maybe if it was because of the Essempite? Just—”

The doctor snorted. “Essempite? You’ve seen the scans, Tubbo. It doesn’t do anything to people, you know that.”

“I’m just telling you that I’ve noticed—”

“Well, it’s good that you’ve been observing your surroundings, but sometimes the human eye makes mistakes. Our computers wouldn’t do that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go give these measurements to the head technician...”

Tubbo frowned as the older man walked away. He was sure of what he’d seen, Essempite did affect humans...probably. After all, no actual tests had been done on humans—just rabbits and pigs, and maybe some mice in the beginning, before he’d moved in with the Apians.

As the months passed, Tubbo tried to get people to listen to him. Nobody did. Geologists laughed at him, mathematicians told him he couldn’t possibly be right, he even confronted a journalist doing research for an article—she’d patted him on the head and asked why such a young child was bothering to involve himself in such complicated things, and told him he should be outside playing with kids his age, and that he was completely wrong anyway. Tubbo had to restrain himself from biting her.

Finally, the day had arrived. Dr. Apian had told the kids to stand together and watch “...this historic event. You’re witnessing the changing of the world!”, but Max had gotten pissed at Tubbo for something unimportant earlier that day and was refusing to talk to him, and Asha was chatting with her friends outside the room. So Tubbo was left by himself in the corner, sipping on a box of orange juice and waiting nervously for something to go wrong—because something was definitely going to go wrong, Tubbo had a strong feeling.

There was a sharp rapping from the front of the room. Dr. Apian was standing, looking out at the raised seats and grinning brilliantly. The place they were standing in had used to be a surgical theatre, but recently had been partially renovated to have a large screen on one side. From his viewpoint near the door, Tubbo could see nearly everyone in the crowd.

He clutched at his juice box. Why was he so nervous? He should trust the older, more experienced scientists. Nothing was going to go wrong.

“Ladies and gentlefolk!” The doctor smiled even more broadly as he began to speak. “We are gathered here today to witness history. At long last, humanity has found the answer to its energy problems. With this new technology—brought to you by the lovely scientists over yonder—there will be no more power struggles. No more pollution, and no more hunger anywhere in the world.” He clicked a small remote in his hand, and the screen changed to another slide. “Six years ago, my wife—”

Tubbo began to space out. He knew this speech, had heard it recited many times before—although to the other people in the room, it was completely improvised. Turbo'd heard it the first day he arrived at the house, in fact. Back when he was just a nervous thirteen-year-old clutching his backpack, seated along on the couch in the Apian’s house and listening to his new foster father rant about global warming and his dead wife. It hadn’t been interesting then and it wasn’t interesting now, and so Tubbo instead chose to focus on the screen, not showing a slowly rotating 3D model of Essempite.

The rock didn’t look like anything special. It was something you’d see the likes of by the seaside, buried in sand, or something—just a hunk of stone, the piece on screen about the size of Tubbo’s fist. It was an unpleasant pea green, didn’t glow (although some said it did give off an unusual smell) and for the most part just sat there doing rock things.

“—And we thank all of you for joining us today. Now, let the show begin! Dim the lights.”

Tubbo had tuned back in to the speech just as it was finishing up. The lights did indeed dim, and the screen turned from the model of the Essempite to a live feed of the reactor room, where several technicians were scurrying back and forth, pressing buttons and flipping switches as they did so. A sudden spotlight shone down on when Dr. Apian was standing, his hand hovering over a big red button. A countdown began playing over the speakers.

Tubbo found it a bit dramatic and very cliched, but whatever. He could have his moment while it lasted.

“3...2...1...And so it begins!” Dr. Apian’s hand slammed down on the button.

There was silence for about four seconds. Then all the lights shut off and the room was plunged into darkness.

Aha! Was Tubbo’s first thought. So something did go wrong! I was totally right. Toob strikes again.

His second thought was holy shit, something went wrong. This is going to be a PR disaster.

All around him, people were running around the room blindly. All the overhead lights were out, as well as the screen, so one by one phones were coming out of pockets and flashlights were being turned on. At the head of the room Dr. Apian was trying to regain control of the situation.

“Just—stay calm, everybody! I’m sure there’s a simple explanation for what’s going on. Say, what’s that smell?”

There was an unusual odor in the air. Tubbo couldn’t quite identify it, but it was familiar. There were sounds, too, and that was the more worrying part, to him: all over the room, people were beginning to cough uncontrollably. There was a dull thump next to Tubbo’s shoe, and he jumped to the side.

Ok, maybe this was a power problem. Not exactly what he’d predicted, but still something. If the activation of the Project had overloaded the circuits (unlikely but possible) the ventilation systems might also stop working and let toxins into the room, which would explain the coughing.

More and more thumps were coming from all over the room. The tiny glows of phone flashlights were dropping to the floor, and Tubbo could only assume that meant their owners had as well.

The coughing faded into silence, and suddenly the lights flickered back on. Tubbo stared in shock.

Everyone in the room had dropped to the ground, unmoving. Draped over his podium was Charles. The journalist who Tubbo had wanted to bite was slumped down in her seat, and Max was lying on the floor on his back. Tubbo was the only one still standing.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, he leaned back against the wall, arms crossed. “Well, I didn’t want to say it, but...I fucking told you.”

This was much closer to what he’d expected. But the question arose—what to do now? He could leave the people there, try to see what had happened, and then wait for them to wake up so he could tell them what he’d discovered— wait to say I told you so to a room of people who weren’t unconscious.

Or—and this sounded much more appealing—he could find out what happened, and then leave.

Tubbo wasn’t stupid, he knew what happened to most kids who ran away. But then again, Tubbo wasn’t ‘most kids’ (see above, re: he was right about something being wrong and none of the world’s smartest scientists figured that out). He had a great deal more resources at his disposal, both in the technology area and the brain one.

And either way, it wouldn’t matter if they woke up before Tubbo figured out what happened. Either he left and nobody knew, or he stayed and nothing changed.

Dropping his now empty juice box on one of the tables, Tubbo ran out the door, down a hallway and to an elevator. When it arrived, he pressed the basement and waited. After a few seconds, the doors slid open at the reactor room, where most of the technology (and the Essempite) was stored.

The air in the room was tinted green—the exact color of the Essempite, Tubbo noted. Just like upstairs, people were lying on the floor or sprawled across their work, seemingly fast asleep. He bent down to inspect one of these, someone he recognised as the head technician. The man was snoring softly, draped over his keyboard. His computer had been shut off, probably by the power going out—looking around, Tubbo could see that the same had happened to the rest of the computers in the room, except for the Essempite monitor (which was battery powered to make sure that in case of an emergency, the Essempite could still be kept track of). The tiny computer stored data from most of the main Project Allium facilities in the world, as well as monitoring the radioactivity levels in the room and the vitals of the workers that stayed there. Tubbo had thought it was stupid when he’d first seen it, but was grateful for it now as he could clearly see that all over the world, workers for the Project had fallen unconscious.

He wasn’t surprised, but he was very concerned.

Tubbo stepped closer to the monitors and pulled a chair over. From here, he could see that hardly anything had changed in the room— the radiation levels were still normal, as were the temperature, humidity, and light level (after an incident a few years ago, Dr. Apian had decided to keep tabs on the brightness in the room at all times). The only difference was the employee’s heart rates and breathing patterns, which had slowed for everyone in the room, and presumably in the building. Tubbo, not being part of the Project, was not listed. Toxin levels in the room were also the same. So why had everyone passed out?

Why had everyone passed out...except for Tubbo?

It was only then that he noticed that something was wrong. A few feet away, partially blocked by a row of computers, was a glass case containing a piece of Essempite, the one that was supposed to power the headquarters. Normally, Tubbo would be able to see the rock inside— now, the only thing that told him what was in there was the fact that someone had carefully written SMP (Essempite’s elemental symbol) on the side of the glass. The reason for that was that the content of the case was now completely obscured by green vapor the same color as the element.

Pushing aside his chair, Tubbo hurried over to examine the case. Was this the cause of the unconsciousness? Something new, created by the Essempite or its reaction to something, wouldn’t be picked up by sensors. It could leak through the entire building via the ventilation system, causing the exact problem he was seeing here. The question was, how did he fix it? And why was Tubbo still awake?

For the first time in his life, he didn’t feel the need to answer questions as soon as they came to him. He could figure this out on the road. Even if the toxin was only temporary, as soon as people woke up they'd have questions—namely, why didn’t Tubbo react the same way they did? He’d be the center of attention, experiments would probably be done on him—Tubbo didn’t want that. And while it might be a terrible idea, at the moment he was too overwhelmed to think of anything else but running away.

He was going to leave. And he needed to be fast and smart about his next moves. Luckily, fast and smart were two characteristics that Tubbo had pretty much mastered.

First, he ran to a supply closet where he knew a portable radio was stored and grabbed it. If anybody was out there, or if anybody woke up, he’d have a better chance of finding them with that. He also took several packages of batteries, a few sets of clothes, food that he knew for sure wouldn’t go bad, the biggest water bottle he could find, and iodine tablets in case he needed to refill it while on the run.

These things were quickly gathered in a backpack nearly the size of Tubbo, and then he was off into the forest outside of the headquarters.

One of the biggest disadvantages that comes from building your giant science lab in the middle of nowhere is that—while it comes in handy for making sure nobody intrudes on your property—it is very hard to get away from on foot.

Tubbo had just that problem. There were no easily accessible roads out of the headquarters—the only way he knew how to get out other than through the forest was a tunnel that went to a helicopter pad, and he didn’t have a keycard to access that, so he had to go through the woods instead. Because of that, Tubbo probably wouldn’t make it to a real city for a while. He had no GPS, no map, and the terrain—while not being the worst for running short distances—was frequently broken up by things like roots, bushes, fallen trees, and in the case of the one Tubbo was currently running down, a river.

As he reached the aforementioned obstacle, Tubbo was forced to stop, and took the opportunity to think about his situation. He was all alone in the wilderness (although perhaps ‘wilderness’ was a bit of a stretch, he was only half a mile away from where he started out) and knew for certain that the forest he was in went on for about another seventy miles. It would take him at the very least the rest of the day to reach the city, probably two days. There had to be another way to do this without hunting around the headquarters for someone with a keycard.

The river. The river! If Tubbo remembered correctly, there was a boat hidden somewhere along the bank.

A couple months ago Max had found an old rowboat, lying on its side in a cave with a hole in its hull. Tubbo’s adopted brother had restored it in secret, then stashed it along the river and, Tubbo assumed, promptly forgotten about it. The only reason Tubbo knew about it in the first place was because he’d accidentally stumbled into Max in the middle of repainting it. The older boy had explained what he was doing and where he’d gotten the boat, and then sworn him to secrecy. Now, all he had to do was find it again and he’d be able to take a faster route—the river that ran through the forest took a shortcut that he wouldn’t have been able to walk along due to the mud and slippery rocks that made anything other than water travel dangerous, not to mention the fact that it headed past the town he’d originally been going to, and to the big city. There, he might be able to find out how to fix what had happened, or at least see if there were any more people awake.

Grinning to himself, Tubbo walked off the deer trail he’d been following and down the bank. He had a pretty good idea where the boat was stored…

Chapter Text

The day the world fell asleep, Wilbur was taking a nap.

He was not technically supposed to be taking a nap, given the fact that he only had a fifteen-minute lunch break at the hospital, but Wilbur hadn’t gotten that much sleep last night and figured it would be better to wake up a few minutes late than collapse in the middle of the children’s ward. About ten minutes ago, he’d curled up in a chair in the west staff room and closed his eyes.

Now it was approximately 12:55 and the entire building was silent.

It was an eerie silence, too, similar to how Wilbur sometimes felt after hours, standing under the harsh fluorescents of the waiting room. Like the hospital was holding its breath and waiting for something that would never happen.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, the brunette pushed his shoulder against the door and stepped into the hallway. Still, there was nothing— not even a bird chirping, although Wilbur supposed that was to be expected. This part of the hospital didn’t have many windows, at least not ones that had a view of the outside.

Was it normal for the place to be this quiet? Oh, definitely not. Most of the time, Wilbur couldn’t go five seconds without bumping into someone. It almost made him wish for Covid times again...almost.

This was freaky, though. With quarantine, there was a reason for the quiet. Wilbur was just being paranoid, he knew that, but still…

Oh, fuck, what if he’d missed an assembly? His friend Charlie, who worked in reception, had mentioned new policies. That theory didn’t completely add up (there still had to be hospital staff around in case of emergencies, of course) but it managed to calm his nerves. He would simply slip into the assembly room and pretend he’d been there the whole time. No big deal.

Wilbur steeled himself, shook his head to clear the doubts, and then set off down the hallway, the click of his shoes magnified by the silence.

He’d barely made it to the Lower Infirmary when the first body showed up.

Well, ‘showed up’ isn’t exactly the right word. Wilbur tripped over it, nearly fell, looked down, and almost fell again. There was a person lying on the floor, unconscious.

Wilbur didn’t recognize her. She was wearing a lab coat, appeared to be in her mid-thirties, and had badly dyed blonde hair. Her name tag was lying facedown on the floor a couple of feet away.

“Shit,” Wilbur mumbled, dropping to his knees and checking her pulse. She was alive, thank god, but he needed to get her to someone who could figure out what was wrong as soon as possible.

Grabbing the woman under her arms, he hauled her into a more manageable position, threw one of the arms across his shoulder, and began to walk down the hall. Progress was slow at first, but he quickly got the hang of it, and was able to make his way to the assembly room in just under seven minutes.

Adjusting his grip on the woman’s arm, Wilbur nudged the door open with his foot, then shouldered the rest of the way in.

What he saw was a room full of bodies.

And not the noisy, awake kind that he was expecting, either. No, the bodies in the room were definitely not moving.

It was as if everyone had decided to take a nap— but that wasn’t what had happened. If it was, there would have been little noises. Coughs and the rustle of fabric, annoying but familiar sounds that Wilbur would have welcomed hearing.

There were no noises. Only silence from the room, and the pounding of Wilbur’s heart in his ears.

He set the woman down in an empty chair. Her head slumped forward almost instantly, and a few seconds later she dropped so that her face was touching the desk in front of her, but Wilbur didn’t care. He was too busy anxiously running his hands through his hair and cursing under his breath. This was...wrong. Something was wrong, and Wilbur didn’t know what. He was used to things being wrong and confusing— of course, he did, he was a nurse— but this was a whole new level.

“Terrible things happen while I’m asleep,” Wilbur muttered to himself. “Maybe I should just be like Techno and never sleep again.”

Actually, no, that was a bad idea. He might become an anarchist.

So it looked like this wasn’t just the woman he’d found in the hallway, then. Or at least, he assumed it was the same problem. People didn’t usually just collapse like that in large numbers, but he’d have to make a closer inspection to find out what had happened.

Striding over to the nearest unconscious person, Wilbur checked their vitals against the woman he’d found earlier. No discrepancies, aside from what would be normal from person to person. They both seemed to be in the exact same state— which was, to say, fast asleep with no sign of waking up.

Wilbur stared across the room, beginning to get panicky. What the fuck? This was some kind of apocalypse shit. Or maybe they had all been killed by ghosts, but either way, something like this was not natural and he didn’t know what to do about it.

He could feel his heartbeat quicken and his breathing stutter— it was only a matter of time before he started having a full-on panic attack. Normally when that happened (about every couple of months, Wilbur didn’t keep track) he’d hide in a closet and try to hyperventilate quietly to prevent people from hearing him.

Nobody was awake to judge him at that moment, but he felt that maybe the familiarity would be good to calm him down, so back out of the room he ran: down a different hallway than the way he’d come and into a closet full of cleaning supplies and boxes of disposable plastic gloves.

Wilbur was so, so glad that this was one of the times he had warning, instead of it just coming out of the blue, because now he couldn’t move and he was probably crying, he couldn’t tell because everything was too much and he couldn’t breath

He couldn’t breath

He couldn’t breath

He couldn’t—

His phone was ringing.

Wilbur gasped, the pain in his head and the tightness in his chest lessening fractionally, just enough to be able to tell what was going on and where he was— in the supply closet, having a panic attack.

With a shaking hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, squinting through tears at the display. His head hurt and his vision was blurry, but Wilbur knew instantly who it was due to the pink blur of the contact photo.

Groaning, Wilbur pressed the accept call button and held the phone to his ear, propping his elbows on his knees.

“H—hello?” Wilbur murmured, wincing as another stab of pain shot through his skull.

“WILBUR?!”

The brunet winced at the loud sound, holding the phone away from his head. “Hey, Techno.”

There was silence for a moment, and then a familiar sigh of relief crackled through the phone speaker. “Oh, thank goodness you’re awake. Are you alright? Is there anyone else with you?”

“I...of course I’m awake, why wouldn’t I be?” Wilbur felt the panic rising again as the image of the room full of unconscious people flickered through his mind. “Techno, what’s going on? There were these people, and they were all...what’s happening?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I took Friend out for a walk and when I got back everyone was sleepin’. Everyone. So I got scared and called you.”

Wilbur laughed shakily. “Pretty much the same thing happened to me. I fell asleep for a few minutes—”

“—You what—”

“—And when I woke up, nobody was awake. No, don’t worry, it was only a nap, I did it on purpose.”

“Oh. Good.”

“So what now?”

“Well, nobody is waking up, no matter what I do. What about you? Is there anybody else that’s not...passed out? Or has anyone shown signs of waking?”

Wilbur frowned, trying to remember. “...No. And they’re all in perfect health, aside from the fact that they won’t wake up.”

He could hear another sigh over the phone. “Well, I have two theories about what happened. One, the government fucked something up again— they would do something like this, I know they would— or two, aliens. The second one isn’t very probable but I felt I should consider it just in case.”

“It’s not aliens, Techno, we’d know by now if it was,” Wilbur grinned, swiping at his face to rid it of the remaining tears.

“Could be. We never can tell. But I think it’s probably the government.”

“You would.”

There was silence. Techno was the first to break it.

“What now?”

“I don’t fucking know,” Wilbur snapped, slumping back against the wall of the closet. “Nothing like this has ever happened to me— to us before.”

“Actually, I think what’s going on is that something hasn’t happened to us.”

“That’s...true, but not the point. Do you have a plan?”

Another silence. The brunette could feel the seconds ticking by, every one a painful reminder that his brother, the man who always knew what to do, was stumped.

“...Yeah, I think I do.”

Wilbur sat up. “Really? You do?”

“We can go to the cabin. There’s enough food there to last us at least two months. After a few weeks, we’ll check if anyone’s woken up.”

“That’s all?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Point taken.” Wilbur smiled grimly and sat up, pushing the closet door open. “Where should we meet up?”

“You stay at the hospital and check if there’s anyone else up. I’ll pack.”

“Got it.”

Chapter Text

In Tommy’s opinion, the best part about the apocalypse was that there was no one there to hear him scream.

Tommy meant screaming in a good way, of course- it was him, and he meant loud. It was as much a part of him as his hair, or his eyes, or the fact that most people found him annoying at first.

In previous foster homes, however, being loud hadn’t been good. He’d gotten kicked out of at least three for “disruptive behavior” or whatever that was supposed to mean.

But here, Tommy could yell at the top of his lungs for hours and no one would come over to shush him. The only downsides were that everyone was unconscious and also really fucking creepy. There were bodies everywhere, and even while he knew they were alive his subconscious kept making him picture corpses strewn across the ground. It was discomfiting to say the least.

About an hour after he’d first come to the city, Tommy started getting hungry. In a normal situation this would be fine- he’d had food withheld in the past, and was used to it at this point (and honestly, how depressing was it that he barely reacted to that thought anymore). Now, however, he was free to do whatever he wanted! No limits!

His first thought of course was crime.

Henrietta didn’t call him a raccoon (derogatory) for nothing. He stole things! Or, well, he tried. The line between what was stealing and what wasn’t was blurred somewhat in Tommy’s mind. It was probable that somewhere out there there were people who didn’t count picking shiny rocks off of the ground as stealing, and Tommy hadn’t gotten away with anything more criminal than that.

At the moment the thought of stealing occurred to him, however, he wasn’t exactly in the best spot to carry it out. He’d been wandering through the streets for a while at that point, and was by that time completely lost in an area mostly filled with offices and apartments. There were a few stores nearby, but even from a distance Tommy could see that they were locked- people had been acting as if the start of Project Allium was a national holiday (which was frankly ridiculous in his opinion).

As he stepped gingerly over somebody lying on the ground and continued down the road, a question was echoing through Tommy’s mind- the same question that he’d had since stepping out of the car and seeing the bodies. Why did this happen? There weren’t any obvious reasons that he could think of. But then again, Tommy wasn’t complaining. So far he’d been able to wander around more in the span of an hour than he had in his whole life.

Turning a corner, Tommy suddenly found himself standing on the sidewalk of a larger street- from the looks of it, maybe the Main one? The street sign had been run over by a car and it would be too much work to try and recover it, but that wasn’t what Tommy was focused on. Across the street was a supermarket.

Crossing to that side of the road was relatively easy. Most of the cars, it seemed, had been at a red light when their drivers fell unconscious, and the ones that hadn’t slowed down had only piled up behind the stopped ones- and after that it was only a short walk through the parking lot and up to the doors (which opened automatically. It startled Tommy a little- he’d been the only thing moving that wasn’t either on fire or completely wrecked for a while now).

Inside, the store was clean and air-conditioned- a far cry from the destructive chaos of the outside world. That probably wouldn’t last long, though. There was nobody awake to keep the power on and everything in good condition.

The first thing Tommy noticed was that a display table had been knocked over and limes had spilled all over the floor. This was unusual for one (very worrying) reason: there was nobody around to have knocked it over.

Most of the other people in the fresh produce section were clustered around the still perfectly upright fruit containers- the table had tipped seemingly on its own. Or at least, the person who’d done it had moved on to a different place.

Was Tommy not the only one awake?

He supposed that made sense. After all, what were the chances of him being the only one not affected by whatever had happened? There had to be someone else, somewhere, who was in the same position as him. And maybe that somewhere was inside the same grocery store as him.

Or maybe, someone had woken up. That answer was much more worrying to Tommy- if the sleeping people woke up after only a few hours, Henrietta would be up and about and looking for the missing Tommy very soon. Which meant he was fucked if he didn’t get supplies and get out of there ASAP.

Partially covered by the limes a few feet in front of him was a black backpack. He grabbed that, then headed off towards the canned food aisle, going as fast as he could without running so that his footsteps wouldn’t be heard just in case there was someone else in the store.

He found canned soup in roughly the middle of the store, right between “Cereal & Snack Food” and “Drinks”. Tommy didn’t know why it was there, because that placement made no sense at all, but it was. If there was anyone else there, he probably would have seen them by now, so he was hopefully safe. Maybe the limes had just tipped over on their own.

As he shoveled whatever looked like it would decently sustain him into the bag, Tommy glanced around at his surroundings. There were no sleeping people in this aisle, although there had been three in “Drinks” and one beyond the end of the shelves in the butcher’s area where the store kept fresh meat and seafood. That person appeared to have collapsed over several salmon fillets wrapped in plastic, much to Tommy’s amusement.

When the bag was full with as much food as he could fit in it, Tommy stood up, hefting it onto his back (with not very much ease, it was pretty heavy) and took a step towards the exit before stopping in his tracks.

He knew what had tipped the table of limes over, now. And it was worse than another human just being awake.

Tommy was standing roughly ten meters away from an enormous black bear.

Oh, shit.

What was one supposed to do in this situation? He thought he’d read something a long time ago that black bears were less aggressive than other kinds of bear, but they’d still attack people. And he wasn’t sure he could outrun a bear.

He definitely couldn’t outrun a bear, he could barely outrun most humans and that was just because his height gave him an advantage.

“Good...bear,” Tommy stammered. “I’ll just be going now, if you don’t mind...”

The bear stared at him blankly. It was kind of cute, now that he thought about it.

Tommy bent down slightly, grabbing around on the floor until his fingers made contact with one of the cans he’d decided not to pack and pushing it gently towards the animal.

The bear looked at the can, then back at him.

“I guess you don’t like...” he squinted at the label. “...baked beans. That makes sense, those are for old people.”

No response, which made sense. Bears couldn’t talk (probably).

“Well, okay then, Martha- can I call you Martha? You look like a Martha. I’m going to leave you to your meal now, Martha. Have a nice day?”

He began to back slowly up, never taking his eyes off of the bear, which stayed pretty much still, staring blankly after him.

As soon as he was out of sight of the bear, Tommy let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. What in the fuck was a bear doing in a grocery store in England? Bears didn’t even live in England! And what was more, it was blocking the way he’d come from. As long as it was still in the way, he couldn’t safely exit without being in danger of getting attacked.

Oh, well. At least now Tommy could explore a bit more and see if he could find anything else that would be a useful tool for whatever was going on.

A ways over to his right, at the very back of the store, Tommy could see the refrigerated section. Might as well go over there, even if he wouldn’t be able to take anything that needed to be cold.

There was nothing particularly unusual about the refrigerated section. A few people had collapsed with their heads stuck in freezers (he made sure to carefully remove them and shut the doors) and there was a cart that appeared to have belonged to one of the employees tipped over near the cheese section.

Tommy headed over to that, gingerly stepping over boxes of instant mashed potatoes that had fallen off of the cart, and attempted to heave it upright. He didn’t succeed, but as he stepped away from it his foot hit something solid and he stumbled back a few steps, wincing as the sound of static broke the peaceful silence that had previously hung over the store.

Turning around, Tommy stared at the thing he’d tripped over. It was a medium-sized portable radio, some fancy expensive brand he’d never seen before. He’d hit some buttons with the back of his foot by accident, and it was now hissing and spitting at him like some kind of angry cat.

Tommy liked cats. He wondered briefly if whatever had happened to the humans had happened to cats as well before shaking the thought off and bending down to investigate.

After fiddling with the dials for a few seconds, he realized that since all the people had fallen asleep, it was likely that nobody was manning any radio stations. With a groan, he began to turn the knob back to its original position when suddenly-

A boy’s voice crackled through, just clear enough to be understood.

“-Lo? Is anyone out there? I repeat, can anyone hear me?”

Chapter Text

Tubbo hadn’t expected kayaking to be quite as hard as it was.

So far it’d been maybe thirty minutes, and he’d almost tipped over at least ten times. Sure, maybe this stream wasn’t particularly the best for...anything, really. It had been pretty shallow, but the current was incredibly fast and there were clusters of rocks around the banks. One wrong move would mean tumbling into the foam and possibly never coming back up.

After a while, though, things evened out. The water got a lot wider and deeper, the current was less noticeable, and although there were still rocks every now and then, they were mostly at the shore. The river was big enough at that point that from his position paddling down the middle, the shores on either side of him were pretty far away.

It was at that point in time that he saw the first house, which was a pleasant surprise. The Headquarters was quite a long walk away from anything else (it was meant to be accessed by cars, which could be identified much more easily) and so it was a relief to know that he was making better progress in the boat than he would have if he’d walked. It also indicated that he was getting closer to the city (hopefully).

As he continued on, more and more houses began to peek through the trees, and eventually some small roads in the distance, as well as a few short wooden platforms with small boats tied up next to them. He briefly contemplated ditching the one he was in and stealing one of those, but that was immediately crushed by the fact that he had no idea how to actually use a sailboat. Kayaks were tricky, but he’d figured them out pretty fast. Better to be safe than sorry.

The houses got closer and closer together, the dirt roads became paved streets, and the thick branches of trees became thin and spindly before disappearing to make way for rolling fields and a highway that slowly curved to the side, snaking through the fields to Tubbo’s right.

That- that was promising. Surely if there was a highway, there were people. All he had to do was follow it down, and there would be people.

And hopefully they would be awake. He wasn’t sure yet what had caused the people back at Project Allium to fall asleep, or if it was only something that had happened there.

After steering the boat gently towards the shore, shuffling around in the boat a bit to make sure he could get up without falling over, and wading through the uncomfortably chilly water, Tubbo stopped and looked around. The boat was a problem, now. There were barely any trees near where he was, and he couldn’t row a kayak on concrete.

Well, maybe he could. But it would take a few spare parts that he currently did not have in his possession. The idea would have to go on his mental shelf for now.

With a sigh, Tubbo dragged the boat onto the muddy shore of the river, and up onto the higher, grassy strip of land that separated the river and the highway. He’d have to come back for it sometime, if everything worked out in the end.

Heaving his backpack onto his shoulder, Tubbo vaulted over the short concrete barrier and onto the cracked asphalt. There weren’t any cars in sight, so he wasn’t sure which direction the nearest city was in, but he was bound to get somewhere eventually. All he had to do was start.

Twenty-five minutes of walking later, cars began to show up.

To Tubbo’s dismay, nobody in them was conscious- although whether that was due to the fact that nearly all of them had crashed into something or to the same thing that had happened back at Project Allium, he wasn’t sure. Probably a combination of both.

Soon after the cars, buildings began to appear around him, although he was too far away to determine exactly what kind of buildings. His best bet was apartments or maybe a few offices. The lane he was walking along also got more crowded with crashes, as well as several other lanes converging to make the highway much wider.

The river had stuck beside him throughout most of it, but it was much wider, and the current looked less powerful. It had probably been a good decision to leave the kayak, then.

Although there were a few exits he could turn onto, Tubbo wasn’t sure if he should. There were buildings, sure, but the road was clearly leading to somewhere more important, and the places he could see in the distance didn’t look very promising.

After a few more minutes of walking, Tubbo spotted his destination. The reason more cars had been grouped around this area was because there, in the distance, was an airport. And if there was an airport, there was probably a city somewhere around there.

It was at that moment that Tubbo had a brilliant idea.

He was going to hack the airport.

Assuming everybody in there was in the same condition as the people at Project Allium and the ones in the cars, he could waltz right in there and use all of the technology that usually was meant for flying planes around for figuring out what was going on. It was perfect. And probably illegal, too, but he wasn’t too bothered about that. If anything went wrong, he could claim to just be a little kid who’d gotten lost and separated from his parents, and wandered into the wrong area.

Tubbo sped up slightly, walking as fast as he could without actually breaking into a run. The backpack with the radio and the rest of his supplies was weighing him down a lot, but the airport was closer than he’d originally thought and he was there within ten minutes.

In that area, there were far fewer crashes than there had been on the highway. Most of the cars had been moving slowly when their owners had fallen unconscious, and so it was fairly easy for him to navigate around them and walk into the airport.

He stopped just in front of a set of wide, automatic glass doors. They were sparkling clean except for a single tiny handprint just below his knee, probably left there by a child. He paused for just a moment, before the doors slid open with a quiet hissing noise and Tubbo stepped into the airport.

People had collapsed everywhere. When he was on the highway, and even just outside the airport, there had been far fewer bodies, but here he could see everyone.

It was chilling. There were people who had been sitting in seats, people who had been standing waiting to board planes, people going through security. Tubbo walked past all of them, his footsteps echoing through the quiet halls. Breaking into an airport had never been easier.

Not that he’d tried before then, of course. This was an apocalypse-only situation (unless he enjoyed it, in which case he might have to turn it into a hobby).

Tubbo knew where he was going, kind of. He knew a bit about ATC (Air traffic control) towers- the places where airports handled things like aircrafts on the runway and the ones immediately surrounding the space. He figured that maybe he could find a way to contact other radio towers in the vicinity, and make a broadcast to locate any other people possibly unaffected. And if that didn’t work, he could just see if the same thing had happened in other countries as well.

The ATC tower was located within an hour. The stairwell was tucked between two bathrooms in a staff-only area, and although it had taken a while to get there Tubbo was glad he’d had a chance to explore the airport. He’d also checked on everyone he came across, made sure nobody was in a dangerous position, and stolen a handful of pretzels from a staff member. He was now crunching on these, wandering around the tower investigating the technology.

When he’d gotten there, there’d been a few staff slumped over their keyboards. He’d dragged those guys out of their chairs and heaped them in a pile next to the stairwell- they’d be in the way otherwise. Tubbo had also stolen a blanket from a supply closet (it was pretty cold, and he had no idea how to turn down the aircon).

And now, to business. Step one, figure out how to work this equipment.

It wasn’t that hard, really. Luckily for him, it seemed that somebody had been training an intern, and most of the buttons and switches were conveniently labeled (in dyslexic-friendly font, thank goodness). Here was something for communicating with ground control, over there was a diagram of flight paths. Pretty simple.

Step two, break some things.

Not physical things, though (at least not yet). Tubbo needed to figure out how to repurpose the stuff he’d been given to communicate with people instead of airplanes.

Seven minutes later, he was ready to broadcast something.

His finger hovered over the button that would amplify the signal. This felt...final. Ominous somehow. Like if he did this, there was no going back.

Tubbo cleared his throat, pressed the button, and began to speak.

“Hello? Is anyone out there? I repeat, can anyone hear me?”

A hundred and thirty miles away, a tall blonde boy jerked back from the radio he was crouched over before leaning back in and fiddling with the dials frantically.

“My name is Tubbo Underscore, I’m in the-” he glanced at a post-it note on the wall “-Wytchwood Memorial Airport, everyone here is unconscious. I repeat, can anyone hear me? My name is Tubbo-”

“What the fuck.”

For a second, Tubbo’s brain didn’t process what had happened. Then it clicked into place, and he nearly jumped out of his chair.

“HOLY SHIT I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT TO WORK.”

“Yeah, and I wasn’t expecting this random fuckin’ radio to start yelling at me, and I wasn’t expecting the apocalypse to come a few billion years early, but we all make mistakes. Except me, none of those things were my fault. I never do anything wrong.”

Tubbo brushed his hair out of his eyes with a laugh. “How are you even talking back to me? I didn’t know radios could broadcast back.”

“I have no idea, big man. I just pressed some buttons. What about you?”

“I broke into an airport and repurposed the broadcasting equipment to send signals to other frequencies.”

There was a pause. Then,

“How old are you?”

“Wha- why do you want to know?” Tubbo blinked in surprise.

“I want to know if you’re younger than me. You sound around my age. I’m not a wrongun, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

“Seventeen last December.”

“GOD FUCKING DAMN IT. WHAT THE HELL. HOW ARE YOU OLDER THAN ME?!”

He snickered. “I was simply born better. How old are you?”

“Sixteen. Seventeen next month. I can’t fucking believe it...”

“Well!” Tubbo clapped his hands together. “At least both of us are minors. Adults always fuck everything up. Politics and whatnot.”

“Yeah. Speaking of which, do you know what’s going on? I was in a car with my...I was in a car, and then everyone fucking fell asleep. Everyone in the city, by the looks of it.”

Tubbo had to hesitate at that. On the one hand, he was pretty damn sure that Project Allium was the cause of whatever was happening. On the other hand...if this guy on the phone was told about that, and if he realised who Tubbo was, he might be angry. And Tubbo didn’t want to make the only other person he’d found who was awake mad at him.

“...No. Everyone just started dropping like flies,” he lied. “I was at...a party, and the lights went out, and when they came back all the guests but me were fast asleep.”

“Oh. Shame. What’s your name, by the way? I’m Tommy.”

“Tubbo.”

“Cool name. What the fuck do we do now?”

“Um. I don’t know. I didn’t plan past trying to contact any other survivors...”

“Please don’t call us survivors,” Tommy groaned over the radio. “That makes it sound like everyone else is dead.”

“Well, for all we know, some might be dead. There’s probably someone out there who was doing a backflip over lots of knives when this happened.”

“Tubbo why the fuck would you say that.”

Tubbo leaned back in his chair. “You know I’m right. But on the flip side, if there’s us awake, there must be at least one other person. I mean, what are the chances of us both being awake and both speaking English? If this thing happened to the entire world, that is.”

“True. Do you think we should look for any other...awake people, then?”

“I don’t have any better ideas. We should probably meet up if we’re going to search, then. No point in staying long-distance.”

“We’re not dating, Tubbo, you don’t need to fucking say it like that.”

Tubbo laughed. “Yeah, I realised how it sounded as I was saying it. Anyway, where are you? Like, what city?”

“Uhhh...Kinoko, I think.”

Kinoko? That was closer than Tubbo had expected. About a two hour drive, maybe a bit more than a two day walk. Tommy could make it to where he was on foot or with another transportation method (if he could find one), and Tubbo could wait in the airport and attempt to contact more people. He said as much to Tommy.

“I could probably find a bicycle around here somewhere.”

“Yeah, that would work. Do you know what route to take?”

“There is such a thing as a map, big man.”

A snarky rebuttal was on the tip of his tongue when a sudden movement in the corner of his vision caught Tubbo’s eye. On one of the monitors, a blue light had blinked on. In faded gray letters, the words Blizzard Warning were barely legible.

“Um. Tommy?”

“What is it?”

“There’s this...Well, I guess there must be AI weather detecting technology in this airport, because it looks like there’s a blizzard incoming.”

“...Oh. Was it...y’know...caused by whatever happened? The blizzard, I mean. There was some weird fucking wind shit when everyone fell asleep, maybe they’re linked.”

“N...no, I don’t think so. I think I remember hearing something about the blizzard a few days ago, actually. But you should be careful anyway. Pack a heavy coat.”

“Will do. I’ll see you in like twelve hours, if anything else happens I’ll have the radio on me.”

“Okay. But the blizzard might interfere with the signal, so be careful out there.”

“Fuck the blizzard, I’m literally invincible.”

Chapter Text

Luckily for Tommy, Martha was gone when he exited the store, and there was a bicycle leaning against a stop sign across the street. Even more luckily, a thick, fuzzy blue sweater was stuffed into the basket. He hadn’t been able to find a winter coat in the store (he was too worried about the people in the store freezing to death if the power ever shut off, so he didn’t take their coats), so he’d been worried about Tubbo’s advice. Hopefully it would be enough to prevent hypothermia.

Hopefully he could get to Tubbo before the blizzard struck.

Tommy was fortunately able to find a minor tourist attraction after about ten minutes of searching (apparently, he was in a very historic part of the city. Lots of people had died in some war hundreds of years ago, and there was a visitor center a few blocks away from the supermarket) and snatched a few maps of the area from a table outside of it. From there, he’d woven his way through the city, finally coming to a highway that he was pretty sure was the way to Tubbo, and set off down it.

It was peaceful, actually. At first, there had been several car wrecks strewn along the sides of the highway, but the further away he got from the city, the less signs of people there were. The highway was bordered on either side by forest, and there was a strong scent of pine in the air. A breeze nipped against his face, and Tommy felt the happiest he had in years.

The feeling of calm didn’t last for long. Laying at the side of the highway was a large white van, flipped completely on its side. The doors in the back of the van had been wrenched off of their hinges, and were scattered a few feet away, on the strip of grass near the edge of the tree line.

There was something drawn in faded paint on the side facing the sky- he couldn’t see it, but after leaning the bike against the edge of the van and standing up putting his whole weight on the pedals, he could kind of make out what it was. There were words written in chipped black which read Southern Kinoko Zoo, as well as a drawing of a panda.

It must have been transporting something from Kinoko over to the next city- animals, perhaps?

Tommy jumped off the bike and landed wobbly on his feet, then hurried around to the back of the van. There were several large, metal cages inside- all of their padlocks had been broken and the contents were long gone.

Somebody must have been moving animals. Illegally, he suspected- these conditions didn’t exactly seem humane. But it did explain Martha.

There were no humans inside the van either, asleep or otherwise. They must have either run after the escaping animals or away from them- and honestly, Tommy hoped it was the latter. Those people shouldn’t have been keeping anything in cages like that.

Oh, well. The site had long since been abandoned, it was no use sticking around. Tommy hopped back onto the bike and set off again in the direction of Tubbo.

Speaking of Tubbo, the other boy hadn’t made contact with him since he was in the store. There was a reason for that, of course- Tubbo had told him he was going to search the rest of the airport more thoroughly, and try to find something else that could help them, or another person who was awake, as well as check to make sure nobody had died. So he was away from the radio, and Tommy was alone.

As the minutes (and the trees) passed by, with little to no sign of progress, Tommy was starting to get discouraged. He knew it would be hours until he made it to the city, but when he’d first started out that didn’t seem like so long. Now, he was bored, starting to get a bit tired of pedaling, and most importantly getting chilly.

Oh, right, the snowstorm.

This was very bad. He’d hoped he would at least be able to find some shelter before the storm hit, and while nothing was falling from the sky just then, the temperature was dropping fast and clouds were gathering in the corner of his vision. How much time had Tubbo said he’d had? It must have been more than an hour, right?

Tommy sped up, ignoring the burning in his legs. It was too late to turn back and maybe find the van again, and anyway he wasn’t sure if it would’ve offered any protection against a fucking blizzard. Meanwhile, the clouds had continued to advance, marching ominously across the sky.

Something cold gently brushed his nose, and Tommy’s hands twitched in surprise. Fuck, fuck, fuck. It couldn’t be starting already, right? Maybe there would just be a light snow. A sprinkling of cocaine, perhaps.

Heh. cocaine. Tommy’s inner monologue was hilarious.

Although this was no time for jokes. He had been wearing a relatively thick shirt when he got in the car with Henrietta, but now the snow was drifting down to earth in large flakes (albeit pretty sparsely, but there was no guarantee it would stay that way) and he needed to throw on that sweater he’d found in the bike basket.

Drifting over to the side of the highway, Tommy stopped and began to pull the sweater on. His eyes drifted subconsciously towards the sky, and he wondered how he hadn’t realised the sudden temperature drop. He must have been too caught up in his pedaling to realise, or mistaken the actual temperature for wind chill.

It didn’t matter anymore. There was no going back. He had to keep moving, and try to outrun the worst of the storm.

Ten minutes later, the ground was covered in a fine white powder and Tommy was shivering uncontrollably. The sky was now a dark, ominous gray, and the snow had been quickly increasing in quantity. The winds had also picked up, and he was finding it hard to keep going, what with the bike not being built for this kind of weather.

Tommy cursed under his breath. He’d tried contacting Tubbo several times in the past few minutes, to no avail. Either the other boy was still away from the radio, or his prediction had been true and the signals weren’t getting through.

He was alone, with no way of calling for help, in the middle of a snowstorm fast approaching blizzard levels.

Caught up in his thoughts, a sudden, strong gust of wind took him by surprise, and the bike toppled over. Tommy, who had been near the edge of the highway when it happened, was thrown down the slight grassy incline next to the tree line.

Pushing himself to his feet, Tommy groaned. He definitely couldn’t go on like this- it was too dangerous. He either had to turn back and hope the zoo van had magically righted itself, or try his luck in the woods.

The answer was obvious. He was, after all, notorious for making terrible decisions. Into the forest he would go.

Tommy clambered back up the grass, brushing snow off of himself as he did so. With a heave, he pulled the bike upright and set off into the trees, dragging the bike with him by the handlebars. There was no question of riding it, the terrain was rough and even so, he wasn’t sure if the fall had broken anything important.

He made it about thirty minutes before everything went wrong. The physical exertion of having to clamber over rocks and fallen trees while dragging the bike along warmed him for a while, but the higher the blanket of snow on the ground got, the more the cold bit into him.

Shivering uncontrollably and not paying much attention to his surroundings, Tommy barely even noticed as he tripped over a rock, fell down a steep hill, and fell unconscious.

Miles and miles away, Tubbo sat at a desk, twisting his hands together nervously. He’d lost contact completely with Tommy a while ago. The snow must be pretty deep already where Tommy was- it had already been snowing for a while over the airport, and the other boy was much deeper into the storm.

He hoped Tommy was ok. Nobody else had been awake, what if it was only the two of them? Had he put him in unnecessary danger by suggesting they try to meet up?

Only time would tell.

Chapter Text

It was snowing by the time Techno and Wilbur made it to the cabin.

They’d taken Techno’s car- an old, dusty blue vehicle that made worrying noises sometimes and was probably single-handedly responsible for climate change. But they hadn’t ever had enough money to replace it, and so it stayed.

The cabin didn’t actually belong to them, per se, but it didn’t belong to anybody else either. Wilbur had found it years ago while going on a hike, and the twins had undertaken renovating it. It wasn’t perfect, and it probably wasn’t legal, but nobody else had visited it since he’d first discovered it, so it didn’t matter. The cabin belonged to them.

Wilbur pressed his nose against the window, smiling a bit as his breath fogged up the glass. Outside looked like a winter wonderland- everything covered in a layer of fine white powder, undisturbed and perfect. He was sure that by the next morning, the landscape would be unrecognizable.

The car puttered to a stop outside of the house, wheezing and coughing until it finally broke into silence. The two men unbuckled their seatbelts, and Techno opened the car door. Wilbur scrambled over to the other side (the passenger door didn’t shut properly, they’d had to duct tape it closed to preserve insulation) and followed him out into the cold.

Snow had built up quickly, and it made a crunching sound under Wilbur’s boots as he headed towards the cabin. Thankfully, the porch steps were free of ice, and the door hadn’t rusted since the last time the two of them had been there.

Although the cabin had been completely abandoned when they’d found it, it had been in excellent condition considering the circumstances. They (meaning Techno) had been able to restore it to relatively safe living conditions. The interior was cozy, with a huge stone fireplace in the middle of one wall, and smooth oak floorboards. Wilbur had insisted on putting up fairy lights and soft rugs, too.

He looked around at the place, grinning from ear to ear. It was exactly the same as it had been when they left after last Christmas, plus a bit more dust.

“Will?” Techno yelled from outside. “I’m going to unpack, could you go check on the outhouse? The raccoons might have come back since last time.”

“Sure,” he shouted back. “But don’t break my shit! And don’t leave Friend in the car again!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Making sure to leave the door slightly ajar so his brother could open it with his arms full of stuff, Wilbur ran off into the woods, following the beaten dirt trail to the left of the house. The cabin didn’t have a bathroom, so after a few weeks of peeing in the woods, Techno had finally had enough and made a small wooden outhouse a short walk away in the forest.

A while back, raccoons had taken to hanging around the outhouse. Once, Wilbur had gotten up in the middle of the night needing to use the bathroom, and the furry creatures had nearly given him a heart attack. Techno had chased them off with a broom in the morning, but they’d come back several times since.

The snow and wind were picking up. By the time he’d reached the outhouse, there were little piles clumped around the bases of trees, and his hair was scattered with tiny white flakes. The corrugated metal panel that made up the roof of the outhouse was also covered in snow, which was shaking slightly as whatever was on top of it moved around.

“HEY!” Wilbur shouted up at the outhouse. “Shoo! Get down from there!”

A furry head peered over the edge of the metal sheet and gazed suspiciously at Wilbur. Wilbur glared back.

“You. Trash panda. You’re not allowed in these parts.”

The raccoon chittered in a vaguely smug way, as if to say you can’t get me up here, so you can’t tell me what to do and went back to doing whatever it had been doing before he’d interrupted it. Wilbur narrowed his eyes and looked around for something long to hit it with.

As his gloved fingers made contact with the broom leaning against the side of the outhouse, somebody screamed from far away.

He froze, his blood running cold. Somebody else was awake? And in pain, it seemed?

“I’ll get you later,” he muttered, glancing in the direction of the raccoon, before taking off towards where the scream had come from.

Wind and snow whipped against his face as he ran, leaping over boulders and fallen tree trunks whenever they got in his way, and not paying attention to the ache when he slipped down a slight hill and bruised his knee. The only thing on his mind was that voice- it had sounded young, and definitely scared.

“Hello?” Wilbur called out, looking desperately around him. “HELLO? ARE YOU STILL THERE?”

No response. If anybody was out there, they either didn’t want to respond...or weren’t in a fit state to respond.

His legs burned as he ran on, sometimes looping back to check if there was a space he’d missed. Ten minutes later, nobody- alive or otherwise- had been found, and the weather had gotten a lot worse.

Techno’s probably gotten worried by now, Wilbur thought as he jumped over a rock. He’ll probably come looking for me soon. Maybe he can help me sear- oh.

At the bottom of a hill he was standing on top of was a body. It seemed as if Wilbur had found the person who’d screamed...hopefully, he wasn’t too late.

In a few short slides (the hill was covered in snow and pretty slippery), he made it over to the body, turning it over from its side to its back.

The body belonged to a young boy, no more than sixteen or seventeen. He had fluffy blonde hair and was wearing a soft, blue sweater- or at least, it would have been soft if it hadn’t been soaking wet.. He’d presumably been lying there in the snow ever since Wilbur had heard him scream, was that long enough to get hypothermia? Fuck, he was a nurse, he should know these things. Although to be fair to him the kid was probably unconscious due to factors other than hypothermia- he wouldn’t have been able to scream that loud if that were the case.

Hefting the boy into his arms, Wilbur glanced around at his surroundings, trying to commit the spot to memory. There was a bicycle in pretty bad condition a few feet away, as well as a portable radio half-buried in the snow- he’d have to ask Techno to come back for those later. For now, he had bigger issues to deal with.

After several minutes with no Wilbur back and no agitated screams of “AH FUCK IT’S GOT THE BROOM TECHNO HELP-”, Techno began to get worried.

It wasn’t that his brother couldn’t take care of himself, it was just...suspicious. Wilbur never stayed quiet for long, being loud and dramatic was in his nature. So whenever he was quiet for long periods of time, it was inevitable that something was going to happen eventually.

So he wasn’t sure why he felt surprised when Wilbur rushed out of the forest looking panicked and holding someone’s unconscious body.

Of course, it wasn’t normal for him to have murdered someone. But as Techno watched Wilbur carry the body into the house, his initial shock faded into resignation. With a sigh, he lifted the cat off of the seat and closed the car door before crunching through the snow after his brother.

Everything had been carried into the house before the other man had gotten back- he’d just been about to take Friend inside (he knew from experience to leave the cat for last, or end up covered in scratches) when Wilbur had appeared.

Shifting the furry animal to his other hand, Techno picked up the keys from where Wilbur had left them on the porch railing and entered the house, locking the door behind him and depositing Friend on the ground. Massaging his temples, he turned around to assess the situation.

Wilbur had laid the body on the couch and covered it in blankets (okay, so it wasn’t a dead dead body. That was a relief). At the moment, he was messing around with the electric kettle, presumably trying to prepare some tea.

“Wilbur.” Techno deadpanned, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Techno!” the other exclaimed, not halting at his task. “I was just about to come get you. You see, there’s this-”

“Yeah, I saw. But why is it here.”

“Well you didn’t expect me to just leave the kid buried in the snow, did you? He didn’t fall asleep like the rest of them, I heard someone scream and went to investigate.” Wilbur turned around holding two steaming mugs of tea. “Here, this one’s for you.”

Techno nodded in thanks, walking over to take the mug from his brother. “So you found a child in the snow, and you carried it back to the cabin. Is he an orphan? If he’s an orphan we’re not going to get along very well, you know that.”

“I don’t know if he’s an orphan, I haven’t asked yet. He wasn’t exactly conscious when I found him.”

“Well, ask him when he wakes up then.”

Wilbur rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah, that’s a great idea. ‘Hey, hi, i found you knocked out in the snow in the middle of a forest, by the way are you an orphan?’ The perfect first introduction. He’d probably think we were going to eat him or something.”

“We’re not witches, Wilbur, we don’t eat children. Orphans, on the other hand...”

“Oh, yeah, I just remembered!” He glanced at Techno. “He had some stuff with him. A bicycle- although why he chose to ride through a snowy forest with a bike of all things is beyond me- and some kind of portable radio, and I think a backpack? Would you watch him while I go get the stuff?”

Techno sighed deeply. “...Yeah, fine. Bruh, why is it me who gets stuck with babysitting? I’m sure Friend would be just as happy.”

“Friend is a cat.”

“And the possible orphan is asleep. Your point is?”

“Just come back soon. And don’t forget your coat!-”

But it was too late, Wilbur was already out the door and out of earshot. The coat lay forgotten, draped over the back of the same sofa the kid was lying on.

Techno stared at the blanket-covered lump with trepidation. This was...not going to end well. With his luck, the kid would end up being some kind of demon or something, and Wilbur would end up adopting him anyway.

Oh, well. They would probably be snowed in by the next morning, and the possibly-hellspawn showed no signs of waking up anytime soon. Techno slumped into the nearest armchair and sipped his tea. He should probably savor the silence while it lasted.

In the next city over, not too far from where Tubbo sat in his chair overcome with worry, two people gazed up at the burning building in front of them. A third was still and quiet in the wheelchair nearby.

“Hey, Ranboo,” the shorter murmured weakly. “I think you had the right idea earlier, actually. Do you remember anything from those flight lessons you took a while ago?”

“Yeah, a bit,” the other choked out. “No promises not to crash the plane, though.”

Chapter Text

As someone who saw and served dozens of alcoholics every day, Ranboo could say with the utmost confidence that he would never start drinking.

Not that he could legally. His eighteenth birthday wasn’t for another several months, and because of that he usually wasn’t allowed to handle the actual alcohol unless there was nobody else there- he just helped out Phil with cleaning up and taking already made drinks to customers.

The pub where Ranboo worked at was a nice place, actually. He’d been there for two years already- ever since finding himself suddenly, inexplicably in the UK, with nobody who knew him and no way of knowing how he’d gotten there. Phil had found him sitting outside and trying not to cry, and had given him a place to stay, and he’d been there ever since.

It was 12:30 when everything went to shit.

He’d been in the pub for about two hours at that point, but there had only been a few people in. The morning crowd was pretty sparse- most people were working, and the few that came in were quiet enough that he hadn’t had any trouble without Phil (who was off on an errand for Kristen, his wife).

Ranboo sighed, wiping down the counter with a damp rag. He was bored, and normally he didn’t complain about it but that day was particularly boring. There was just something about the mood, the way everything seemed to hang there undisturbed. Ranboo hated it.

He wasn’t exactly a confrontational person, no, far from it. But the way everything seemed to be just peaceful? It felt like an itch he couldn’t scratch. He was the kind of person who always needed to be doing something- perhaps that was why he’d decided to become a pilot. There was always something to be done, always so careful so that he didn’t fall out of the sky. He’d worked so hard to get into the Aviation Academy, and with Phil and Kristen’s help he’d done it.

But school was on break- the principal’s dog had died, or something like that- and he was back at the pub, bored out of his mind.

His eyes flickered over the few patrons currently sitting at the counter and at a few tables scattered around the room. There were a couple college students laughing with each other over a single beer, a middle aged woman scrolling mindlessly on her phone, and some elderly men arguing (something about boats, from what he could hear) by the door. Also, slightly more concerning to Ranboo, there was a huge bulky man bent over at the very end of the counter.

He’d been muttering quietly to himself since before Ranboo had gotten there, every now and then taking a sip of one of the many glasses of some kind of strong alcohol in front of him. As he watched, the man shifted in his seat and glanced up at him before looking back down at his drink.

He resisted the urge to run. This guy was giving him a bad vibe.

The man coughed, a sort of rasping snort that made a few of the other people in the pub glance over, and drained the last of his final glass. Upon discovering he had no more to drink, the man wrinkled his nose and looked back up at Ranboo.

“Another,” The man slurred. “Quickly, if you know what’s good for you, kid.”

Ranboo looked him up and down, clenching his hands around the damp rag to hide the trembling. He distantly remembered what Phil had said to him once, a while ago- “Ranboo, if any of the customers ever threaten you, call me and I’ll kick them out. Don’t give them any more to drink...if things get violent, I’ll always be there to deal with it.”

“But they’re paying us!” Ranboo remembered protesting. “And if they don’t actually start anything, wouldn’t it be better to just give them what they want, so nothing actually escalates?”

Phil’s response had been absolute. “No. If they threaten you, they shouldn’t be here. I’ll handle everything.”

But Phil wasn’t there to help him, he was busy getting something for Kristen, and Ranboo was on his own. And the man was still glaring at him. Oh, god, his marshmallow backbone. He could feel it melting.

“I-I’m sorry, sir,” Ranboo said, trying to hide the shaking in his voice. “You’ve already had our limit of alcoholic beverages per customer, I can’t serve you any more. Would you like some water or a soda instead?”

That was true, actually. Phil had whispered to him right before he left that the man had ordered as much as he could and that he shouldn’t give him anything stronger than a root beer.

However, through his drunken haze the man seemed to not understand this. With a loud scraping of his stool, he stood up to his full height (which, although he was shorter than Ranboo, was still pretty intimidating given his bulk) and brought his hands down hard on the table. Ranboo flinched as the empty glasses on the counter rattled, and the pub went silent. Everyone was looking at them, oh god-

“Don’t cross me, kid,” the man rasped. “I’ve beaten others larger than you. Not that that’s so big of a deal, I bet a strong wind could blow you over. Now, I’m not going to ask again. Get me the goddamn drink.”

Ranboo stumbled backwards into the shelf of decorative wine bottles as the man loomed forwards. There was dead silence in the room- everyone had stopped what they were doing to stare. This wasn’t- he couldn’t just do what the guy asked, it was wrong, he shouldn’t do that, Phil would be back soon, all he had to do was wait this out. Just a few more minutes, then everything would be fine.

Stall, Ranboo, stall! You’re good at it, you know what to do!

“I- I don’t...” He squeaked. No, that wasn’t good enough. Customer service voice, try again. He could do this. He could handle the situation, Phil would be so proud.

Shaking himself off, Ranboo stood up straight and stared the man in the eyes. “I apologize, but I wasn’t here when you first came in. What was your order, again?”

The other blinked and growled out something indistinguishable.

“Could you repeat that? I apologize, my hearing isn’t the best these days.”

“Mine too!” Piped up one of the old men who had been arguing about boats. “I was just thinking that my usual order is a little dated, could you maybe give me some tips, sonny?”

Ranboo nearly wilted in relief as the drunkard turned around to look at the one who’d spoken. Thank the heavens for senior citizens.

“It’s none of your damn business what I buy, grandpa,” said the man. “Mind your own fuckin’ business.”

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you to respect your elders?”

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you that bones get more brittle as you get older? Go back to your prune juice.”

Ranboo looked back and forth between the two in alarm as the old man whipped out a cane and started to brandish it at the other, shouting about disrespect and “kids these days”. If this didn’t stop soon, somebody was going to get seriously hurt.

As he jumped over the counter to try to intervene, another patron had obviously come to the same realization. One of the college students had run towards the two arguing men and stepped in between them, obviously trying to prevent any further conflict.

While Ranboo watched helplessly, the drunk man lifted the college student up by the collar and threw him across the room, where he hit a rack of whiskey bottles and slumped to the floor. Luckily for them, the rack fell backwards instead of onto their head, and they were able to stagger to their feet a few seconds later, looking dazed but otherwise unharmed.

The patrons of the pub stared in shock at the man for a heartbeat, as did Ranboo. The old man who had first confronted him was the only one who seemed unfazed, although he had retreated a few steps.

The pub was silent except for the sound of nervous breathing and the clink of broken glass as one of the friends of the college student helped them to stand up. There was a certain tension in the air- nobody seemed willing to move and break the silence, in case they too were thrown into a wall.

Ranboo’s eyes flickered around the room. The drunkard had crossed his arms over his chest and looked triumphant. That’s what I’ll do to you if you cross me, seemed to to be the aura radiating from him, and it was working. Everybody was either looking at him or Ranboo with varying degrees of fear (except, of course, for the old man, who had now apparently wedged his cane between the table leg and the wall).

The room was silent for a few seconds more.

And then the bell rang over the door.

The door opened with a quiet swishing noise, and everyone’s eyes snapped to it as Kristen walked in holding some grocery bags, looked around, and froze.

The scene to an outsider must be confusing, Ranboo assumed. Everyone on their feet and staring at you, smashed glass and whiskey all over the floor, the tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. Kristen had a shocked expression on her face as she took in the room, eyes halting for a moment on the man who’d started it all.

“Ranboo,” she said, with a remarkably steady voice for someone who just walked in on something like that. “Ranboo, what happened?”

“I’ll tell you what happened,” the man cut in. “The little brat refused to serve a paying customer.”

Kristen looked him up and down with disdain. “I’m sure he had a perfectly good reason not to.”

“He did!” yelled the old man, still tugging fruitlessly on his cane. “The kid said he’d bought all the drinks he could buy, and then this brute threatened him and threw some poor fellow across the room!”

“I see,” Kristen said carefully. “Well, sir, I’d appreciate it if you would exit the premises, please.”

“You’re going to take their word over mine? Some spoiled child and a senile old man?”

“I’m perfectly willing to trust the eyewitness accounts of everyone here. At the moment, you seem to be outnumbered. Now, if you would please leave?”

There was an affirmative murmur through the room, everybody too nervous to speak up directly against the man but just as scared of Kristen- Ranboo knew from firsthand experience that she could be terrifying when she needed to. Phil sometimes affectionately called her ‘the goddess of death’.

The man, however, seemed to be too drunk to notice the threatening tone behind her words. He laughed, a rough, grating sound that hurt Ranboo’s ears.

“You think you can make me? Do you know who I am?”

“I don’t care who you are,” Kristen said, placing her hands on her hips. “You’re to leave here and never return. You’re not welcome here.”

“I’d watch your tone with me. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

“Don’t make me repeat myself, sir. Out. Now.”

It was at that moment that the bell over the door rang again and Phil walked in, holding a small package in his hands. Ranboo was torn between cheering and groaning- depending on what Phil said next the day could either go horribly wrong or everything would work out.

Phil looked around the room- at Kristen and the unruly patron, at the old man still struggling with his cane, at the rest of the customers huddled in fear in corners, at the smashed bottles on the floor...and raised an eyebrow.

“...Who spilled the whiskey? That’s going to be a pain to clean up.”

Ranboo buried his face in his hands.

With a growl, the man advanced towards Phil. “Are you the owner of this place?”

“Nope! I’m the bartender, mate, but I can carry a message if you want. The owner is hardly ever here.”

The man advanced further. “Sure, you can take a message...”

With a shout, he swung his fist at Phil’s face, missing badly. Phil looked over at Ranboo and Kristen in shock before dropping the package in Kristen’s hands and jumping over the counter to put some distance between himself and his attacker.

“Stop moving, you little rat!” The man roared, swinging his fists around blindly and stumbling into empty chairs.

Customers swarmed out of the pub, taking advantage of the threat being distracted. Kristen was barely able to pull Ranboo out of the way as the man almost ran into him, confused by the sudden movement.

“What the fuck happened while I was gone?!” Phil yelled, dodging another punch.

“I’LL TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED,” the man replied. “That LITTLE BRAT-”

He paused, suddenly, fist still hanging midair. Ranboo could also feel Kristen’s hands loosen on his shoulders, and he turned around to look at her.

Kristen looked dizzy and was wobbling on her feet. As the three of them watched, she tipped to the side, Ranboo managing to catch her before she hit the ground. Outside, where the customers had been watching the fight through the window, people were dropping like flies. Soon enough, Ranboo, Phil and the drunk man were the only three left standing.

The man staggered back into a table, knocking over a lit candle. Ranboo watched in horror as the tablecloth lit on fire, but the man didn’t seem to notice.

“W-witchcraft,” he stammered. “You’re witches! You killed them!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, mate. There’s no such thing. I don’t know what happened, but could you please step away from the fire?” Phil had a pained expression on his face, arms outstretched as if he could grab the guy and pull him away from the flames. Ranboo personally didn’t think Phil could reach both of his hands around his wrist, but he supposed the sentiment was there.

“No! Get away from me, you freaks! You-”

The man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fell back, knocking the table over and rolling to the floor. The fire spread with him.

Ranboo gasped and started to move towards the man, before remembering that he was holding Kristen and stepping back, trying to drag her towards the door. Phil ran over to take her from him.

“Ranboo, open the door for me and get out of here! We’re not going to be able to get the other guy out right now, I’ll have to go back for him later!”

He nodded, unable to speak through the lump in his throat, and ran over to open the door so Phil could carry Kristen out.

The cold March air nipped at Ranboo’s cheeks as they stepped outside. A pile of bodies was heaped near the window- apparently Kristen and the man weren’t the only ones affected by whatever so-called witchcraft had occurred. All up and down the street, cars were crashing into each other.

He turned around to see Phil staring back into the pub, looking resigned. The whole room was on fire by that point- he could hardly see anything through the wall of fire.

Phil sighed deeply. “I told the owner we weren’t up to date on our fire safety, but he didn’t listen...call the fire department. I don’t think it’ll work, but we might as well try.”

Ranboo whipped out his phone, dialed the emergency services and held the device to his ear. The tone rang for a while, before...going to voicemail.

He stared at the phone in shock. “I didn’t know emergency services even had a voicemail. What’s going on? I don’t get it.”

“Well we can’t be one hundred percent certain, but I think,” Phil gestured around at the chaos and unconscious bodies, “Everyone’s fallen asleep. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how, but whatever has caused this is bad.”

Ranboo looked over at where Phil had propped Kristen’s body against a tree. An idea occurred to him. “One second, I need to go get something.”

A few minutes later, Ranboo returned, now dragging behind him an empty wheelchair. Phil stared at it in confusion.

“Ah, mate, where did you get that?”

“The lady at the morgue next door told me they kept a wheelchair in their broom closet so that if it turned out somebody wasn’t dead, they’d be able to be moved around easily even if they were completely paralyzed. I thought it was weird for a while, but I guess now it’s coming in handy. Kristen can sit in it so we don’t have to carry her around.”

“That’s...uh, slightly concerning, but I guess it makes a bit of sense?”

After they’d positioned Kristen properly in the wheelchair, the two turned to the still-burning building. A rafter beam had collapsed inside, completely blocking any access the two might have been able to use to rescue the drunk man.

“...Yeah, it’s hopeless. Thank fuck everyone evacuated before it set on fire.”

Ranboo nodded, lost for words.

“Hey, Ranboo? I think you had the right idea earlier, actually. Do you remember anything from those flight lessons you took a while ago?”

He was referring to the time they’d had a joking conversation about what would happen if anyone died in the pub. Ranboo had suggested fleeing the country to avoid any suspicion about their involvements in the death, but Phil had argued that that would only make them look more suspicious.

”...Yeah, a bit,” he choked out. “No promises not to crash the plane, though. Also, hey, what do you mean ‘a while ago’? I’m still taking lessons. And my memory is perfect.”

“Keep telling yourself that. Now, which way is the airport?”

Chapter Text

The first thing that Tommy noticed when he woke up was that he was warm. Warmer than he’d been for a long time, but not uncomfortably so. It was nice. The feeling reminded him of a long time ago, before he could make solid memories. A sense of light, and of being loved...no faces or voices, but someone just out of his reach…

Tommy’s eyes shot open as everything came back to him all of a sudden. The car, Martha, meeting Tubbo, the forest...where the fuck was he? His last memory was of tripping down that hill, and then...darkness. He certainly didn’t remember making it to safety.

Maybe...maybe Tubbo had come after him, and by some stroke of luck found where he’d stumbled off of the highway and into the forest. It was almost impossible, but he had to cling on to some hope while he had it. Because there were two alternatives, and neither was very good.

Option one- he’d died there in the forest, covered in snow. Tommy usually tried to be pretty optimistic about things, but the situation wasn’t good.

Option two (which was arguably the worse outcome) he’d been kidnapped. Years ago, when he was only seven or eight, he’d stayed at a foster home where his foster sister was taken a few weeks into his stay. The police found her dead body under the bridge a month later. He’d left that home soon after (the parents weren’t able to stand the sight of another child in their house, too overwhelmed with grief) but the memory had stuck with him. If he’d been kidnapped…well, this couldn’t end well.

Holding his breath, Tommy carefully maneuvered himself upwards, trying to peek over the top of the blanket pile while struggling to remain still from the outside, just in case there was anybody in the room with him.

After two or three minutes of slowly inching himself into a position where he was leaning against the cushions of the couch he’d woken up on, Tommy finally found himself able to see the room. Squinting so hard his eyes were almost closed (so he still looked like he was sleeping to the outside viewer), he finally took in his surroundings.

The room he was in was cozy- there was no other way to describe it. Soft-looking rugs were covering the floor, fairy lights hanging from the walls, and a softly crackling fireplace built into one of the walls. The wooden floor and walls with paintings of landscapes hung crookedly on them only served to heighten the warm feeling in the air, and a few armchairs were seated next to the fire.

The next thing that Tommy noticed was that sitting in one of these armchairs was a man with his back turned to him. He had long, pink hair, pulled over his shoulder in a neat braid, and was reading a book in silence. Despite the bright color scheme, however, he was incredibly intimidating. There was something about him that gave off a threatening aura- and Tommy hadn’t even seen the guy’s face.

If this was who had kidnapped him, Tommy stood no chance at escaping. The man looked strong. On the other hand…he was also distracted. This might be his only opportunity to get the fuck out of there.

At a snail’s pace, Tommy peeled back the blankets, wincing every time the fabric rustled and sliding his feet slowly onto the floor. Throughout the entire process, the man stayed in the chair, silently reading his book.

After minutes of slowly, painfully dragging himself off the couch, he finally found himself lying on his stomach on the floor. The man in the chair still hadn’t noticed him (thank fuck), and no other possible accomplices to his kidnapping had shown themselves. The next step was to find a safe place to hide and wait until the man decided to leave the cabin and give him a chance to get out of there.

Leaving the room was out of the question, of course. There were two doors- one of them probably the exit to the house, as indicated by the window right next to it blurred with frost, and the other one…well, Tommy didn’t know where that one went. Probably to a secret murder basement where the guy killed innocent orphans he found knocked out in the woods. He did look like the type to build a candy house and eat children.

Luckily for Tommy, there was another option. Built into one of the walls was an upper, hayloft-type area- and because of it, the room had a pretty high ceiling. If he could manage to climb onto the rafters from the hayloft, he’d be able to stay hidden unless the man looked up (which he probably wouldn’t- Tommy wasn’t Spiderman, after all).

The only problem was getting that high up. There was a ladder to the loft, but even if he managed to climb that without being detected he’d still have to stand on the railing and somehow grab onto one of the beams and pull himself up all while staying completely silent.

Fortunately, Tommy stored all of his luck up for moments like this. Being a poor orphan waif meant that he didn’t succeed in most things in life- only at stuff like this. It was pretty similar to never having any luck with dice rolls in D&D until something useless comes along and you roll a natural 20- only in Tommy’s case, messing up could mean life or death. But it was still a stupid thing to hopefully be lucky at.

As the minutes ticked by and Tommy inched closer to the ladder, the man remained unknowing in his chair. Every so often, he’d turn a page in his book, and Tommy would freeze completely still- but he never turned around, and soon enough he’d made it all the way to the ladder.

Placing one foot on the bottom rung, he glanced around to see if the man was watching. After having confirmed he’d managed to get that far undetected, he grabbed the highest rung he could reach and bolted up the ladder as fast as he could without making any sound.

He collapsed on the floor of the loft, any noise thankfully cushioned by yet another soft carpet lying on the ground. He’d made it! If the man looked around now, he was…well, he wasn’t exactly safe, not yet at least. He hadn’t made it to the rafters, but this was a huge step forward.

Tommy peeked one eye open and stared up at the rafters. He was tall enough that he’d probably be able to make it, but the man might hear him jump, and then all his efforts would be for nothing.

After a few seconds of deliberation- during which his brain did everything to try and convince him that attempting to make it to the rafters was a bad idea- he’d come to a conclusion. He had to do it- had to try, at least. There was no guarantee that he’d make it out of the room alive, but then again…everyone in the city had been asleep. If this guy was awake, and so was he, then there was a high chance that Tubbo would find another survivor to meet up with. Maybe someone not separated from him by a blizzard, this time.

Clenching his jaw and pushing himself up with one elbow, Tommy peered over the edge of the railing, hands gripping the wood tightly. The man was still engrossed in his book…well, there goes nothing. Time to do what he did best- take stupid, dangerous risks.

Tommy placed one socked foot on the railing and pulled himself shakily up, balancing with one hand on the wall. This was…oh shit. He hadn’t considered what might happen if he fell. But the guy in the chair still hadn’t noticed anything, and the rafters were so close…

Keeping one hand carefully still on the wall, he reached the other out and touched the side of the rafter with his palm. After a few seconds like that without falling, he moved his arm forwards, wrapping it as far as he could around the sturdy wooden beam. Taking a deep breath in, Tommy pushed his other hand off of the wall and wrapped that arm around the beam as well. This was it- this was the moment where everything could go wrong.

He leaned forwards, letting all of his weight rest against the rafter. For a second, everything was quiet, the silence only broken by the rustle of paper as the man below turned a page. Then, he let his feet slide off of the railing.

Tommy’s arms tightened around the beam instinctively, trying desperately to support the new weight as he dangled in midair. The man still hadn’t noticed anything, thank fuck. Speaking of fuck, Tommy was trying as best he could to bite back all the curses he knew as his legs swung back and forth.

Lifting his leg to the left, he swung his body up and around, managing to get enough momentum to haul himself upright onto the rafter. He’d fucking done it! He’d made it! And nobody had spotted him!

Tommy looked around excitedly, glancing down at the man who continued to read his book, oblivious to the boy above him, and out over the other rafters to where…a cat sat, perched on the rafter beam in the center of the room, directly above the man. The cat was staring directly at Tommy and had a very confused look on its face.

His eyes widened. This was just like a movie he’d seen, years ago (he couldn’t remember the title), where someone had been trying to hide and an animal had given them away. He didn’t recall exactly what had happened, only that the animal (it was probably a cat, to be honest, cats could be very spiteful) had made a noise and whoever the person had been trying to hide from had come running. Fuck, his life really was like an action movie now.

The cat tilted its head to the side and stood up, beginning to pace back and forth down the beam. Tommy lifted one of his palms out pleadingly towards it.

Come here, he mouthed silently. Good kitty, come here, don’t make any noise-

The cat, very predictably, did not make any move to come towards him. It only stared smugly over. Thankfully, it also didn’t make any noise.

He extended one arm towards it, pausing for a moment to look down at the man (who was still reading. How interesting could that book be?). The cat stopped pacing.

Shifting his weight so that he was completely kneeling on the rafter, one hand splayed out beneath him for balance, Tommy leaned forward. After a few seconds and no move from the cat, he leaned forward even more. His arm was now fully extended and lying on the next rafter.

Oh, fuck it, Tommy thought, and began to climb across the beams on his hands and knees. The cat lashed its tail as it saw him approaching, but made no attempt to run away.

Here, kitty kitty kitty, he thought desperately, as if the cat could somehow hear his thoughts. Come here, please, just a few more feet.

He was so close. A little bit more and he’d be there. He just needed to stretch a little bit more and then- find himself nose to nose with a cat?

The cat- Friend, apparently, as that was what was written on its nametag- had leaped across the gap between it and Tommy and was now standing right in front of him. If there had been anybody else in the room watching it would have been a ridiculous sight- a lanky blonde teenager, body stretched on his stomach across three rafter beams, who-the-fuck-knows how many feet in the air and staring into the wide eyes of a cat. However, the man below still hadn’t noticed anything amiss, and Tommy certainly didn’t find the situation amusing.

It was at that moment that the guy in the chair looked up from his book. Tommy didn’t notice immediately, he was still glaring at Friend, but the panicked mutters below him caught his attention pretty quickly.

“No, no no,” the man was murmuring to himself, still unaware of the situation above him. “Why did I have to get stuck with babysitting duty? And now the kid’s gone, oh, Wilbur’s gonna freak out…”

Tommy, breath catching in his throat, glanced down. His hair was falling into his eyes (and he couldn’t brush it away or he’d fall probably to his death, the room was unusually fucking tall) but he could still make out what was going on below. The man had thrown all the blankets off of the couch where Tommy had been sleeping, and was pacing back and forth, running his hands through his long, pink hair and looking extremely nervous.

“Oh, god. This is exactly what I expected, bringing a raccoon into the house? Never a good idea. Best I can say is I told you so, Will…I don’t see any way to put this off, I’d better go get him.”

And with that, the man pulled open the door, wincing a bit as the cold air hit his face, muttering under his breath about orphans, and left Tommy paralyzed with fear. As soon as the door had closed, the cat began to purr loudly, rubbing its face against Tommy’s cheek.

“Uh…hey, cat…Friend, is that your name?” Tommy shifted his weight so he could pet the cat without falling. “Thank you for not saying anything while I was up here, I really appreciate it. But if you’d just…let me down, that’d be great. Please.”

stared at him for a second before hopping onto his head.

“Ow! Hey, you fucker! Get off of me!” Tommy yelped, freezing in place as the cat curled up around his shoulders. He sighed. There went his chances of escaping…might as well just accept his fate. At least there was still a chance that when that pink haired guy came back with whoever he’d gone to get, neither of them would look up and he’d be able to find another chance. But at that moment…he was stuck in the rafters with a cat on his shoulders. Shit.

Chapter Text

Tubbo spun around in his chair, kicking his legs idly. It had been a few minutes since he’d lost contact with Tommy, and he was bored. On the way over to the airport, he’d been too caught up in worrying about what would happen to him- but now that he had some confirmation that there was somebody else awake and that he wouldn’t immediately die, the fatigue had set in.

He’d already investigated all of the buttons in the ATC tower- half of them he couldn’t understand, and the other half had to do with airplanes that probably would never arrive. He’d piled the bodies of the unconscious workers in the tower against one of the walls so they were out of the way, and had investigated their belongings thoroughly (nothing very interesting had been found). Simply put, there was nothing else to interest him in that room.

The rest of the airport, however, provided an intimidating challenge. There had simply been so many people packed into the building at the time when everyone fell asleep that bodies littered the floor left and right- picking his way through them was a challenge, and Tubbo had stepped on enough limbs while trying to find the tower that the idea of wading back into that was unappealing.

On the other hand…it was no use going out to look for Tommy, even though the two of them had lost contact. It was because of the incoming blizzard, he had no hope of just walking out and finding him. There were only two things to do: stay in the ATC tower, fiddle with buttons, and hope nothing blew up, or…go downstairs. Be inventive. Find a way to explore the airport terminal without tripping over people.

He got up and walked to the staircase, hesitating for a moment, before shrugging his shoulders back and walking down, skipping every other step until he reached the bottom and pushed open the heavy metal door.

The terminal was, in a word, big. And fancy, even fancier than he’d first thought in his initial scurry around the building. It had high, arched ceilings, and the sunlight shone through geometric windows high above him. The lights affixed to the ceilings were nothing fancy, but they were shielded by what looked like an intricate metal grating.

As he gazed around, his eyes caught on the grating almost immediately, and an idea popped into his mind- not a good idea, probably, but an idea nonetheless. He could climb the ceiling. That grating looked like it would support his weight (probably) and even if it couldn’t, if he managed to get high enough up to test it he’d be able to see the terminal from a better perspective.

It was stupid and dangerous, yeah, but so was everything else that he’d been doing that day. A little bit of climbing wouldn’t kill him after all he’d been through in the past twenty-four hours.

Tubbo started off again, the bounce renewed to his step. He’d always liked high places, really. This was just the first time he’d been left alone long enough to try something of this level of stupidity.

Luckily for Tubbo, the grating did indeed support his weight and was far enough away from the ceiling that he didn’t have to crouch to move around. He’d managed to get up using one of the massive windows that faced the airstrip- it was made out of geometric panels of glass, and the metal sealing between each panel stuck out enough that he was able to scale it like a rock climbing wall. There had been a few moments, halfway up the window and forty feet in the air, where he thought he might fall- the metal had been getting a little bit slippery with the sweat from his palms. Thankfully, he managed to regain his grip and shakily climb the rest of the way up.

Up close, the grating was more like an intricate metal web than anything. It was tight enough that he could stand on it without the tips of his sneakers slipping through any holes, and surprisingly strong. The lights were actually at a manageable brightness, too- they were mostly white, but dispersed among them were smaller pale red lights that had set a comfortable mood when he was down on the ground.

Although the view down to the floor was dizzying, Tubbo was less affected than he’d expected to be. His footing on the grating dispelled a lot of the vertigo, and the surrealness of the situation took care of the rest- not to mention the fact that being all the way up there gave him a perfect view of the airport unhindered by the unconscious bodies of travelers or staff.

After a few minutes of wandering around, the novelty still hadn’t worn off. The terminal was bigger than he’d originally expected, and although there wasn’t much to do up there, Tubbo had entertained himself by fidgeting with a piece of string that he’d found in his pocket and trying to guess what people were in the airport for. A group of middle-aged women who’d fallen asleep while passing through airport security, for instance, were fleeing the country after having been accused of poisoning a government official. The tall man in a long black trench coat was visiting his granddaughter in Nice- stuff like that.

It had been about ten minutes after he’d climbed the window that he heard the sound of the automatic doors opening.

He was lying on his stomach and idly tracing his fingers across the metal strips of the grating when the sound reached him, and for a second he didn’t process what had happened- seconds later he lurched to his knees, glancing around to find the source of the sound.

To Tubbo’s astonishment, three people had entered the airport. The first was a tall boy who looked about Tubbo’s age. He had a nervous expression on his face, split-dyed black and white hair, and was muttering something unintelligible under his breath. His companion, a much shorter but older blonde man, was pushing an unconscious person in a chair. Both of them were also pulling suitcases.

“Phil,” the tall boy raised his voice, just loud enough that Tubbo could overhear from where he was sitting stock-still above them. “Are you sure this is a good idea? I’m not a good enough pilot to fly one of these fancy planes, and there might not be anyone who can help us here.”

Phil laughed. “I’m definitely not sure, mate. This is a bit unexpected, even for me. As far as I know, nothing like this has ever happened before.”

“Ever? You’ve been alive for thousands of years, and yet your experience is still limited. There is no hope for the rest of us.”

Phil swatted him on the shoulder playfully, the other jumping out of the way to avoid getting hit. “I’m not that old, Ranboo! I’m only thirty-two, you’re only like half my age!”

“See? Ancient. On your deathbed, practically.”

“Why you little shit!”

From above, Tubbo watched as the two bantered with each other. This was a good sign- a great sign, in fact. He’d presumed that he and Tommy weren’t the only ones awake, of course. It seemed a bit improbable that the only two people left on the earth would be only a few cities away from each other, surely there must be more…but it was good to see evidence of others.

However, although he was beyond happy to see more awake people, Tubbo forced himself to remain hidden and not go rushing up to the two. With Tommy, back when he hadn’t known if he was the only one left, the two of them had been so grateful to hear another voice that neither of them had hesitated to trust the other. Around these two (well, three, but the third person was unconscious), Tubbo would afford to be a bit warier.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he focused back in on the conversation between the two people below.

“-Anyone else awake?” Ranboo was saying. “Should we look around? They all look pretty dead to me…It’s so quiet here, nobody’s moving. It’s creepy.”

“It sure looks that way, although we should check just in case.”

“Oh, but it’s so weird here. It feels like everybody died, but they’re all still breathing. Do people in comas have ghosts? Maybe the airport’s haunted, Phil…”

“Don’t be ridiculous, mate. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

Above them, Tubbo felt a grin begin to spread across his face. No such thing as ghosts, huh? Not if he had anything to say about it.

While Phil and Ranboo poked around the mass of bodies, shaking shoulders and occasionally making excited shouts that petered into disappointment as they realized the person wasn’t actually awake, Tubbo scurried his way back down the window and up into the ATC tower.

After a bit of rummaging through the belongings of the unconscious workers, he found what he was looking for: a long, sturdy coil of rope he’d discovered at the bottom of a duffel bag, and a spool of stiff wire that had been placed on a shelf in a supply closet next to a pair of pliers.

With only a bit of difficulty, Tubbo twisted the wire together and bent it into a vaguely hook-like shape with the pliers. He then twisted one end of the hook around the rope and tied the rope back around itself. After a second of deliberation, he also grabbed a paper bag full of popcorn and dashed back down the stairs to the terminal.

Once he’d climbed back up the window and was safely hidden on top of the grate, he stopped to assess the situation.

The gaps between the metal in the grate, although not wide enough that his feet were in danger of slipping through, were just the right size to drop the hook down. To Tubbo’s delight, he’d climbed back up at the perfect moment- Phil, the older one, was sitting on a bench right below him and rummaging through one of the suitcases he’d brought with them.

While Tubbo slipped the hook through the bars and began to carefully, carefully lower it down, inch by inch, Phil pulled a folded up piece of paper out of the suitcase and ran off in what was presumably the direction Ranboo had gone, leaving his suitcase unattended.

As soon as Phil was out of sight, Tubbo tossed another few lengths of rope through the grate so that the hook was hanging only a little bit above the case.

“Come on, come on,” Tubbo whispered to himself. “A few more inches, just a little bit more- Yes! Got it!”

The hook had caught on one of the suitcases’ handles. After a little bit of tugging to make sure it was secure, he dragged the rope up as fast as he could, spilling its contents everywhere. Unfortunately, the case didn’t fit between the bars- however, it wasn’t very heavy, and Phil and Ranboo would probably be back in a few minutes.

By the time the two appeared in the distance, Tubbo’s arms had begun to ache. He’d shifted his sitting position every few minutes in an attempt to stay comfortable, but to no avail. These people, however trustworthy they might later turn out to be, deserved a bit of a jumpscare for making him wait.

Below him, oblivious to their plight, Ranboo and Phil had spotted the previous contents of the suitcase.

“I told you, there are ghosts here! Ghosts! As if this day couldn’t get any worse!” Ranboo hissed.

Phil sighed, massaging his temples. “I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for this. You thought of ghosts earlier, so your brain is jumping to that conclusion. There’s probably…a dog or something. Somebody’s dog who got away when they fell asleep, ran around, and messed up our stuff.”

“Why ours out of all the luggage in this entire airport, then? And where’s the suitcase?”

“Probably around here somewhere. Come on, that dog can’t have gotten far.”

He grinned as Phil walked away, leaning forward on his knees. His fingers slipped through the grate, fumbling with the hook for a second, and then, with a clink, it released.

Tubbo rocketed to his feet, dashing across the grate as fast as he could. The sound of his footsteps against the metal was drowned out by the CRASH of the suitcase hitting the ground and the panicked yells of the two people below- by the time he reached the other side of the terminal, Ranboo was only just looking up at where it had fallen from.

He’d done it. On to stage two of Make the Two Strangers Think the Airport Is Haunted.

Chapter Text

Walking through the forest was a lot better when you weren’t panicking out of your mind, Wilbur had decided.

He hadn’t had a chance to look around and appreciate the scenery while looking for the source of the scream, and even less so when he’d carried the kid back to the cabin. Now, though, there was no rush, and the only sounds around him were the soft crunching of his boots in the snow and the distant trickling of water coming from a stream that hadn’t quite frozen over.

During the few minutes he’d spent in the cabin talking to his brother, the flurries of snow had gotten heavier. The footprints he’d left were already almost erased, and tiny snowdrifts were forming against the sides of trees.

Wilbur exhaled deeply through his mouth and watched the puff of condensation dissipate into the air. It’d been a long time since he’d had a quiet moment like this- his days seemed to be filled with chaos and the stress of balancing multiple jobs so he and Techno could keep their apartment.

With all the…stuff…that was going on, especially if it turned out to be the actual apocalypse, he was just glad to have a few minutes of peace.

Something crunched under his foot, and Wilbur looked down, startled. He’d been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed the fact that he’d wound up at the bottom of the hill where he’d found the kid.

The bike was still there, as was the radio. The thing that he’d stepped on was a small knapsack embroidered with a pair of green and purple music disks- he hadn’t noticed it originally, it’d been partially buried in snow, and he’d been too caught up in his panic to see it anyway.

He bent down and picked up the backpack, shaking it lightly to brush off the excess snow. Something inside of it clanked together loudly, and Wilbur frowned, unzipping it and reaching inside.

To his surprise, he pulled out a can of beans. The wrapper was warped and falling off due to water damage from lying in the snow, but it was unmistakably beans.

“...What the fuck?” Wilbur murmured.

This kid was…well, there were two explanations that sprang to mind. Number one, he was a runaway and had packed nonperishables expecting the food to be stretched thin. Number two, he was one of those people always prepared for doomsday, and he’d been on his way back to his underground apocalypse bunker. Considering they were in the middle of a forest, either could be true.

Wilbur zipped up the bag and threw it over his shoulder. After a second of consideration, he scooped up the portable radio as well. The bike would be hard enough to drag through the snow if it were in perfect condition, but there were more than a few dents and scratches, and he could always come back for it later.

With the bag slung over his shoulder and the radio clutched in cold, stiff fingers beside him, he gave a final once-over and turned back toward the cabin.

The trudge back through the snow was more difficult than the initial one. For one thing, the snowdrifts had begun to trickle over to the main path, and his boots were buried up to the heel every time he took a step. He’d been outside for a while at that point, and his hands were cold. Wilbur’s glasses were getting fogged up every time he breathed, and every couple of seconds he had to stop and wait for them to clear up so he didn’t slam into a tree or something.

When he was about halfway home and just about to jump over a partly-rotted fallen tree trunk, Techno appeared around the bend and came running up to him.

“W-Wilbur!” Techno hissed, bent nearly in half and clutching the stitch in his side. “Wilbur the kid- the kid’s missing!”

Wilbur blinked down at him. “The kid is what?”

“Missing! I sat down to read my book and a few minutes later I looked up and he was gone! Vanished. You’ve kidnapped a magical orphan!”

“Well, first of all, I didn’t kidnap him. I saved him from probably getting hypothermia and dying, that’s not kidnapping. Second, weren’t you supposed to be watching him?”

The two men had begun moving towards the cabin, Techno still winded and having to break into a jog every few seconds to keep up with his brother.

“I was, and he didn’t leave. I would have noticed if someone had opened any of the doors.”

“Then he’s still in the cabin?”

“If he is, he was doing a pretty good job of hiding from me.”

“Damn it.” Wilbur quickened his pace to a near-run.

A few minutes later, the two caught sight of the cabin peeking out from between the trees. Just before they made it to the porch, however, Techno flung out an arm to stop Wilbur from moving any further.

He pointed down at the ground. “See? No footprints besides ours. He hasn’t left.” Techno snuck a glance at his brother. “Unless, of course, my theory about him being a magical teenager is correct. Main character energy and that kind of thing.”

Wilbur rolled his eyes, brushing past him and skipping two of the porch steps on the way up.

The door was unlocked. It swung open with a creak as he laid his hand across it, and Wilbur leaned gratefully into the warm air, letting out a sigh as his fingers began to unstiffen. He set the radio and knapsack down on the side table next to the door before flopping into the armchair by the fireplace.

Techno, however, remained standing by the door, glancing around for something in confusion.

“Uhh…where’s Friend? And the kid is still gone, I told you.”

Wilbur waved a hand around the room lazily. “There is no such thing as a magical teenager and there is no such thing as a magical cat. They’re both around here somewhere.”

“You would make a terrible parent.”

“I’ll have you know that I’m Friend’s favorite. You’re just the weird uncle,” Wilbur grinned.

Techno rolled his eyes, shaking off his jacket and hanging it neatly on a coat hook by the door. “You sit there and brag about your incredible cat dad skills, I’m going to get some food to lure him out.”

“Just you watch, he’ll be back by the time you get the tins from the basement! I have incredible ‘pspsps’ing skills.”

“Okay, Dr. Doolittle.”

As Techno withdrew from the room Wilbur chuckled to himself. Despite the circumstances, he was feeling more relaxed than he had in months. Perhaps that was a bad thing (there was, after all, a missing teenager somewhere in the cabin) but he couldn’t find it in him to feel grim about the whole situation.

A minute or two later, Techno returned with a bowl and a dusty can of cat food he’d dug up from somewhere in the basement. He walked over to the table on the other side of the sofa the kid had been lying on, placing down the bowl and waving the cat food around in the air.

“Friend,” he called, glancing around to see if the cat had reappeared while he was away. “I have some dinner for you! With extra cobwebs, I found it at the very back of the shelf in the pantry.”

Wilbur propped his chin up with his hand and stared at the can. “Don’t you think that might be past its expiration date?”

“Does cat food even have an expiration date? It’s canned, isn’t it?”

“I’m sure it does.”

Techno turned the can over in his hands, squinting at the faded label. “Yeah, you were right. This one is fine, though.”

In one clean movement, he opened the can. It made a sharp popping sound. He pried off the metal lid and placed it on the table by the bowl before looking back to inspect the contents.

“It looks fine, too. Friend? Come get your dinner.”

There were a few seconds of silence, and then something meowed loudly above their heads. Both men looked at each other, then up at the ceiling.

Perched on the rafters, like a very large, blond sparrow, was the kid. He was still wearing the damp sweater that both of them had forgotten to take off and dry and looked absolutely terrified at the prospect of having been caught. Clutched between his arms was Friend, who had a very unhappy look on his face and kept trying to escape and reach the can of food.

As the two stared up at him, Friend finally managed to wriggle out of his arms and leap onto the mantle above the fireplace and then down to the floor, trotting up to Techno and staring up at him accusingly.

This seemed to snap the boy back to his senses. Shifting his weight onto his knees and peering down at the two brothers, he plastered a large (and obviously fake) grin on his face.

“‘Ow do?” He chirped at them. “Terrible weather outside, huh?”

Techno gaped up at him, lost for words. “You…Wilbur, there’s an orphan in the rafters. An orphan stole my cat. Oh my god.”

Wilbur looked back at him so fast he could practically hear his neck cracking. “Your cat? I think you mean our cat. What the hell?”

“First of all,” The kid interrupted. “He’s my cat. Second of all, how do you know I’m an orphan? Was it you who killed my parents? You seem like the kind of person to do that, seeing how you literally kidnapped me.”

“We did not. I found you half-dead in the snow, you’re lucky you didn’t get hypothermia! And he’s definitely not your cat.” Wilbur glanced at Friend. “Back me up, Friend. We literally feed you, don’t let this random child boss you around.”

Friend stared at Wilbur for a few seconds before going back to looking at the food Techno was still holding.

“Sell-out,” Wilbur muttered.

Techno coughed, drawing their attention back to him. “Okay, ownership of Friend aside, introductions and…explanations…are in order. Kid, you were unconscious in the woods, in the middle of a snowstorm when we found you. What exactly made you think it was a good idea to wander out there? You don’t even have a coat.”

“Well, for one thing, I’m not a kid-”

“-Yeah, that’s definitely untrue-”

“-And I didn’t exactly have much choice, did I? Everyone fucking fell asleep. I found a radio and there was this other guy, Tubbo, and he was like mimimimi we’re the only ones awake we should meet up and though I can see now that’s not true, he was at an airport or something on the other side of the forest and I thought I could beat the snow and make it to him. But I obviously fucking couldn’t, and I tripped on something and woke up here.”

Wilbur and Techno stared at each other. Whatever they’d been expecting, that wasn’t it. There was somebody else out there, and he and the kid had been in contact. Evidently whatever had happened to them had affected a larger area than they’d originally thought.

Before either of them could say another word, however, Friend jumped up on Techno’s pant leg and mewled insistently. Techno sighed, emptied the can into the food bowl, and set it down on the ground for Friend to enthusiastically nibble at.

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now,” he sighed. “We’re stuck here until the snow stops- probably not for another couple hours. Kid, are you going to get down from there?”

“My name’s not ‘Kid’.”

“Well, what else are we supposed to call you? You haven’t exactly introduced yourself.”

“Tommy. But you can call me Big T.”

“Yeah, I’m not going to do that,” Techno deadpanned.

Chapter Text

The sun was setting, and Ranboo had been getting increasingly antsy for the past few hours.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that the pub had burned down, a guy had died, and the apocalypse was (maybe) upon them, Phil was acting…nervous. That hardly ever happened.

Ordinarily, during a crisis, he was calm and relaxed, joking around with Kristen and Ranboo to try to get their minds off of whatever was going on. Now, however (whether due to the stress of possibly being the only people in the city still awake or because of the state of Kristen Ranboo wasn’t sure), he was quiet and acting a little dazed.

After the suitcase had fallen on them and nearly crushed Ranboo, the two of them had shakily retreated to a waiting lobby near the reception desk. Phil’s logic was that because the room was smaller and the ceilings more “manageable”, they wouldn’t be at risk of a concussion from more potential falling objects.

Ranboo didn’t say anything to that. He was too caught up in trying to think of an explanation for how their suitcase got all the way up there that didn’t involve some supernatural entity.

While Phil stole travel blankets from people’s luggage to try and make a semi-comfortable place to sleep that night, Ranboo wandered off on his own to explore the airport.

At one end of the terminal where the suitcase had fallen, there was an escalator leading up to the second floor. That was where the lobby and Phil were. Although he hadn’t bothered to look around much up there, Ranboo was pretty sure there were also a few bathrooms down the hallway.

On the same floor as the terminal, there was a wall-mounted map that featured various airport restaurants he might want to check out, but Ranboo ignored those. Everyone complained about airport food, and he wasn’t feeling particularly hungry. Something about the atmosphere of the airport at night made him lose his appetite.

Walking over to the huge, geometric glass windows, Ranboo gazed out at the tarmac. No planes had taken off or landed since they’d gotten there…and there were implications to that that he didn’t really want to think about.

All of a sudden, there was a loud thud from above him- the sound of the lights inside of the airport turning off, he thought- and he was plunged into darkness.

“Sorry, mate!” Phil called from the top of the escalator, voice echoing through the room. “I should’ve warned you before doing that. I’m gonna go to sleep, okay? Make sure you don’t trip over a suitcase on your way up here.”

“I’ll be up in a few,” Ranboo shouted back.

He glanced back out the window. The light strips lining the tarmac glowed faintly in the night, and far away across the fields of grass that surrounded them, he could see the shine of city lights, as well as an orange, flickering light that looked suspiciously like a building on fire.

Truly, the world was going to shit. Just yesterday he’d been studying just in case his professor pulled a pop quiz on the class, joking around with Kristen, staring out his bedroom window at the busy street below. Would he ever get to do those things again?

Ranboo exhaled softly and watched as his breath fogged up the glass, blurring the lights miles away. With one last wistful glance, he turned on his heel and headed towards the elevator.

With any luck, he’d wake up the next morning and everything would turn out to have been a dream.

He’d been a little short on luck lately. It was much more likely that he’d wake up to find himself dangled twenty feet in the air by whatever malevolent spirit was haunting the goddamn place.

The second guess was closer to what actually happened.

Ranboo awoke slowly. His first thought was that the gradual return to consciousness was surprising- surely sleeping spread across three hard wooden waiting room chairs draped in a few layers of blankets would jolt him awake fairly quickly.

His second thought was Why does my mouth taste like popcorn.

He blinked, flicking his tongue experimentally around his mouth. Sure enough, a few popcorn kernels had somehow found their way inside of him while he slept.

“What…the heck.”

To be honest, this was more of a ‘fuck’ kind of occasion, but whenever Phil cursed it seemed to annoy the patrons of the pub, and Ranboo wasn’t sure yet if the ghost (Yeah, definitely a ghost, he hadn’t had popcorn in years) would react the same. Better to be safe than sorry.

A quick glance at his phone showed that it was around two in the morning. Phil was snoring softly on the bench a few feet away from him, clearly fast asleep. Had he received some supernatural popcorn as well? Or was it just Ranboo who was being tormented in his sleep with movie theater concessions?

Alright, perhaps “tormented” is the wrong word, Ranboo thought as he swung his legs off of the chairs and slipped on his shoes. More like…beset with. This might be a nice ghost, after all. A pilot who botched a landing fifty years ago and wants me to avenge them or something.

On the one hand, going down to investigate was probably a bad idea. On the other hand, Ranboo was thirsty, he wasn’t sure if Phil had packed any water, and the map of airport amenities he’d seen earlier would most likely be of some help.

Holding his phone flashlight in front of him, Ranboo slipped on a jacket (it had gotten impossibly colder during the night. Why did this kind of place always have their air conditioning at the highest setting? It was honestly ridiculous) and headed down the escalator, which had been turned off when Phil shut down most of the power so they could sleep in the dark.

Somehow, the terminal gave off even worse vibes than it had before. The shadows pressed in on him from every direction, giving the space an almost suffocating feeling despite the high ceilings.

The flashlight wasn’t much help, either. He managed to cross the floor to the map he’d seen earlier without tripping over something and faceplanting, but his eyes had yet to adjust. When he looked down at his feet, they seemed to fade away into the darkness.

According to the map, any concessions were all the way on the other side of the building. He’d have to go through baggage claim to get there.

As he walked slowly through the halls, the sound of his footsteps echoed menacingly back at him. On his right were the floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the landing strip- although he couldn’t exactly see out of them at the moment. While he and Phil had slept, a snowstorm had swept in. The lights of the city that he’d seen earlier were impossible to catch a glimpse of through the fall of the dense, white powder. At least that explained why it was so much colder.

Minutes passed as he trudged on, shivering slightly. His eyes had adjusted to the dark, and he could see the fuzzy outlines of the conveyor systems that brought people their luggage.

According to the map, he had to loop back through customs and head up a ramp that would appear on his left. Just before he was about to duck under the stanchions, however, something large and metal-sounding clattered to the ground behind him.

Ranboo whipped around, searching for the source of the noise. Several feet back in the direction he’d come from, an unopened can of paint was rolling to a halt on the tiles. There was nobody else in the room but him.

Surely, any normal human person wouldn’t have had time to get out of sight before he’d have seen them? True, it was almost pitch-black, but the room was fairly open- not many places a full-grown person could hide. And a child small enough to duck behind one of the plant pots would’ve had a hard time carrying the can, anyway.

Giving the can one last tremulous glance, Ranboo continued on. There was no use investigating, he’d seen enough horror movies to know that taking the bait from the ghosts would only end in Phil waking up to discover his blood-stained corpse. Also, during the walk through the airport, he’d been getting progressively thirstier, and a cold glass of water really sounded good right about then.

About five minutes later, Ranboo was treading down a wide, blue-carpeted hallway that slanted slightly up. At the end of the hallway- or at least, where he assumed the end of the hallway was, it was too dark to see- he’d probably find the concessions area.

When he’d been walking through the terminals and in customs, the ceilings had been high enough and there was enough light that although it was still extremely creepy, he hadn’t felt claustrophobic. The hallway, however, was so closed in and shadowy that it felt like the blackness was actually pressing in at his eyes. Blinking was a relief- at least when he did that everything was supposed to be dark.

Lost in his thoughts, Ranboo didn’t notice that he’d reached the end of the hall and slammed into a closed door, bruising his nose.

Was the airport playing tricks on him? Had that been there two minutes ago? He honestly wouldn’t be surprised at that point if he was actually the unknowing protagonist of a bad horror movie- the kind with the surprisingly high budget and clichéd plot.

Holding his aching nose with one hand, he pulled the door open with the other…and was suddenly blinded.

For some reason, when Phil had shut off the lights, he might have forgotten some of them. The place he’d arrived at was fully lit- in normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be a problem, but Ranboo had spent the past however many minutes in near-complete darkness.

Blinking rapidly to clear the spots from his vision and rubbing harshly at his eyes, Ranboo staggered through the door and slammed it behind him.

After a few seconds of leaning against the door with his hands pressed over his face, his vision re-adapted to the light, and he peered through his fingers at the area he’d walked into.

It was fairly large- not quite as huge as the terminals had been, but still quite big. The ceilings were maybe fifteen feet high, and it stretched to the sides in both directions. To his left, a sign indicated that if he headed to the left, he’d arrive at passport control.

Both walls were lined with various different branded food stands. It reminded him somewhat of the part of a subway with catering places, but cleaner and slightly more stale.

What caught his attention, however, was the person standing a few meters away from him, holding a plastic cup of what looked like orange juice.

They were wearing a respirator mask that obscured their entire face, and some kind of black fabric was draped around their shoulders. From the way that they were standing, they seemed to have not noticed Ranboo…yet.

Ranboo clamped a hand over his mouth and crouched down to hide behind the sign, keeping his eyes fixed on the person. In the hand not occupied with orange juice, they were holding a thin booklet. The title of the booklet was indiscernible from where he was sitting, but the person seemed to be dissatisfied with whatever it had written in it.

A few more seconds passed. The person had placed their cup of juice on the ordering counter of a store selling pretzels and pulled a pen out of their jacket pocket to scribble something in the margins of their book. Ranboo’s legs were beginning to cramp up.

Did ghosts even drink orange juice? For that matter, did ghosts annotate reading material? The person seemed fairly solid from what he could see (nnnnnnnnWhich, to be honest, was not much- his efforts of staying out of sight blocked most of the view). Perhaps Phil had been right that there wasn’t anything mystical about the airport.

Before Ranboo could make a decision about whether or not to confront them, though, the person made the choice for him. Slipping the booklet and pen back into the inner pocket of their jacket, they grabbed their cup of orange juice and began to turn back down the hallway (Fortunately, not in the direction of Ranboo).

It was now or never. Wherever the person had been hiding, he probably wouldn’t encounter them again. Hurling himself into the middle of the room, Ranboo reached one arm out towards the figure, the phone still clutched in his other hand.

“Hey!” Ranboo yelled after them, heart thudding in his chest.

The person nearly jumped out of their skin, whirling around and accidentally throwing the thing in their hand at Ranboo’s head- which, unfortunately, happened to be the plastic cup full of orange juice.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, one of them dripping wet and the other frozen where they stood. The probably-not-a-ghost-anymore was the first to break the silence.

“Oh, my god, I’m so sorry,” they said, flexing their fingers as if they were thinking of helping, but thought better of it. “I swear I didn’t mean to throw that, it was just instinct. Is your phone okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, I’m fine, just a bit sticky- hey, wait, you don’t get to distract me like that. You’re awake! We didn’t think anybody else was! Who even are you?”

“Your worst nightmare,” the person deadpanned.

“Drowning? Being abandoned? Smiley faces? You don’t really look like any of those, although I will admit that the mask is kind of creepy.”

“Y’know, usually the first thing someone does when they meet someone isn’t tell them their top three worst fears, but I guess since the world is kind of in shambles right now it doesn’t matter. Also, smiley faces?”

Ranboo smiled awkwardly. “I just find them kind of ominous. But seriously, who are you?”

In one smooth movement, the person pulled off their mask. There was a twinkle in their eye as they grinned at Ranboo, and he got the feeling that this person was not someone to be messed with. “Tubbo. Tubbo Underscore. Pleased to meet you.”

Chapter Text

October 17, 2019.

Dream was pissed. More than pissed, in fact: he was positively fuming. Everything about the world just seemed too gray to do anything about it.

All his years of scientific research- decades, actually, counting the time spent by his mentor, Scott. All of it gone in a single day.

Who could’ve predicted the betrayal of that bastard, Apian? He’d stuck with the cause for years- even when nearly all of their funding was lost and the work seemed like just another one of those problems that the world wouldn’t have the technology to solve for decades.

And then Apian had abandoned them out of the blue, stolen their documents, deleted any other copies they’d had, and fed misinformation about the organization to the press that would discredit the lot of them for what would presumably be the rest of their lives. Before Dream knew it, his friends and colleagues had scattered, trying desperately to find a foothold as their life’s work disintegrated before their very eyes. He hadn’t been in contact with more than three of them since the event.

Not that Dream was taking it any better than the rest of them. He’d been the last one to leave on the day that everything went wrong, and the terrible finality of being the person to lock the laboratory door had been haunting him ever since. In the time since then, he’d done almost nothing more than pace around his study and lie awake in bed, staring at the ceiling. His roommate, Sapnap, was getting sick of it.

It was a cloudy Saturday night when he barged into Dream’s room, grabbed the back of his office chair, and dragged him all the way into their dingy apartment kitchen.

“Sap!” Dream yelped, grabbing at the armrests to avoid tumbling out of the chair as it crashed into the kitchen wall. “What the fuck, man?”

“I’ll tell you what the fuck, Dream,” Sapnap hopped up onto the counter next to the sink and crossed his arms, glaring at the other. “What you just said is the most you’ve spoken to me in weeks. All you do is stay cooped up in your room, and I’m pretty sure you must have only been eating at five in the morning because I sure as hell haven’t seen you doing it. The last time we interacted was when you slipped an envelope with your half of the rent under my door. You need to take care of yourself, okay? I know you lost your job, and I understand that it’s hitting you hard, but you look like a walking corpse right now.”

Dream grimaced and rubbed at his temples with his palms. He could feel the beginnings of a headache coming along. “I’m not going to lie and tell you I’m fine. I know I’m not. But even if I did clean myself up and try to get another job, it wouldn’t work. He ruined my reputation, nobody in their right mind would hire me. I’m done. Finished. Put out of commission, permanently.”

Sapnap scoffed. “Permanently? I will admit I don’t know much about the dirtier side of the scientific community, but surely you could get a job cleaning test tubes or something.”

“Maybe so. But this was my life’s work, and even if I did clean test tubes I doubt any employer would trust me to do much more than that. He fed some nasty stuff to the papers.”

“That…sounds a bit extreme. Weren’t you friends with this guy for a while? Why would he do that?”

Dream let out a slightly unhinged laugh. “Oh, you have no idea what he’s like. I didn’t suspect anything either if it makes you feel better- we weren’t friends, per se, but I thought I knew him well enough.”

“You’re talking like he murdered a bunch of children. Just go find someone who doesn’t believe him when he says he made those discoveries by himself, it’ll be fine.”

“Maybe he hasn’t murdered a bunch of children yet. But he also has no fucking idea about how dangerous that stuff he’s got is. And knowing him, he won’t figure it out for years, if at all.”

“What do you mean?” Sapnap had looked skeptical before, but doubt was beginning to creep into his expression.

“I mean that…well, it’s hard to explain since you’re not exactly an expert in the field, but that stuff we found has…effects on people. It’s hard to notice, and more complicated than I can explain right now, but prolonged exposure, even with protective equipment, will kind of…shut your brain down.”

“What the hell.”

“Scott- Doctor Smajor, that is- thought that after a while the human brain would kind of just shut down. Like a living corpse- technically still breathing and alive, but not really able to do much else.”

“But that was just a danger to you guys, right? Not everyone else in the world, like those hypothetical dead children? Really, shouldn’t you be thanking him for getting you out of that situation?”

“We don’t know what he’s going to do with that stuff, though, do we? Probably something incredibly publicized. There wouldn’t be much point in disposing of the rest of us if he wasn’t going to milk the fame of this for all it’s worth.”

“Is there anything you can do to stop it? To stop him? What protective measures did you take when you were in the middle of research?”

Dream pursed his lips. “Protective gear, mostly. We actually tried to develop something to lessen the risk and it failed pretty badly- I’m still not entirely sure what went wrong, but we accidentally made the sample we were working with worse. I can’t imagine what would happen if Apian ended up doing the same thing…he wasn’t involved in that kind of stuff, he doesn’t know what not to do.”

“Holy shit, Dream. If this is a matter of life and death-”

“Almost-death. More like a coma, to be honest.”

“Whatever. My point is, why can’t you just break into his house and tell him that he’s putting people in danger?”

Dream was silent. The only sounds in the kitchen were the noises of cars and people rushing past on the street two floors below their kitchen window.

After about thirty seconds of awkward waiting, he spoke up. “I…I can’t bring myself to do it, though.”

“What? Why not?”

“I’m just so fucking angry, Sapnap. Maybe it’s wrong of me, but I want to see that fucker pay. He deserves it- if not for what he did to me, then for what he did to the others. Besides, there’s no guarantee that he doesn’t have better people on his new team who can fix the safety issues. And whatever he’s planning on doing that might put even more people in danger probably won’t work. Trust me, that man is an idiot. So for now…I’m not going to say anything. I can’t.”

It was more than angry, though. He was furious in the kind of way that almost made him understand what authors meant when they described a character’s vision ‘going red’. If it wouldn’t have threatened his wellbeing and reputation further, he honestly would have taken a knife into Apian’s office and stabbed the man to death. But Sapnap wouldn’t understand that, would he? And that was fine with Dream. It just didn’t make the feelings go away.

Sapnap raised his eyebrow, oblivious to the thoughts racing through his friend’s head. “Well, I won’t pretend to understand this sciency stuff you do, but it seems to me like you’d be better off telling someone. I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to force you to do anything, though, so…just try and get out of your room a little more. Take care of yourself. Also, please stop sneaking around the house in the middle of the night- your footsteps sound like mice scurrying around for some reason, and I almost called an exterminator the other day.”

Dream felt himself laughing for the first time in weeks. He was still simmering under the surface, but…he had years to come up with something to sabotage Apian. For now, he should probably just focus on putting himself back together a little bit.

As the years went on, Dr. Apian continued to gain more support and funding, gradually snowballing into the spotlight. Dream watched it all through his computer monitors, biding his time and piecing his precious research back together.

As it turned out, there was another copy of the studies they’d done- not the data Apian had stolen, nor the destroyed files back at the (now-abandoned) lab. By complete coincidence, Dream discovered stacks of journals handwritten by Scott from before the disaster- he was able to decipher them and begin building up a plan.

While Apian’s fame had been growing, so had Dream’s anger. At some point during the torturous years he spent fuming and humiliated, he’d realized that there was nothing he wouldn’t do to seek his revenge. The conversation he’d had with Sapnap so soon after his life was broken apart stuck with him- specifically, the part about Apian…accidentally recreating the disaster of an attempt to fix the effects of the Essempite. If something were to, say, go horribly wrong with the Project, nobody would blame Dream. He could swoop back in after things went wrong and pick up the pieces. Apian would be ruined.

And when he finally solved the safety problem and created something that could counter the Essempite’s threat to human wellbeing, he didn’t tell Sapnap. He knew the other man would only try to convince him to take it to Apian, to that god-damned Project Allium. He wasn’t going to do that. Not when his revenge was almost within reach…

The day that the launch date for Project Allium was announced to the public, Dream broke back into the laboratory where all of it had started. It was jarring, at first, to see the rusty locks on the doors and broken glass on the ground left there by rebellious teenagers looking for a place to get high. It didn’t affect him as much as he thought it would, though. He went there for one thing and one thing only.

That chemical that Scott had made in an attempt to make things easier for their small group of researchers. The one that had worsened the danger.

He found it locked in a rusty, overturned safe. It had been cushioned from breaking by clumps of damp, decomposing files, thankfully- although the glass of the vial was dusty and clouded, it had been saved from the same fate as the debris that crunched under Dream’s boots as he walked through the deserted rooms.

Doctor Apian would regret what he’d done. Poor, ill-intentioned Doctor Apian, who in the days following Dream’s trip back to the lab released a few studies that someone he’d hired had done on the Essempite- studies that happened to include a few lines of data that could fix its destructive effects. Not that anyone figured out what they’d discovered, that is- without knowing it, Project Allium had given Dream the exact thing he needed to be able to protect himself to get close enough that he could execute his plan.

A few weeks before the launch, Dream disguised himself as a journalist and snuck into the headquarters of Project Allium.

Even with the event that many days in the future, there was an incredible crowd packed into the building, and so much the better: he was able to blend in completely. Nobody asked any questions to just another person trying to get the latest information about the thing everybody in the world seemed to be clambering to know about. There was only one person who would be able to tell that he didn’t belong there, and that person was busy being pummeled with questions from the real reporters.

As Dream elbowed his way through the crowd, however, he noticed someone who didn’t seem to have the same enthusiasm as the others or even the same nervousness some of the scientists were displaying at the thought of talking to the press There was a kid- perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, sitting by himself and glaring quite angrily at a polaroid camera.

Before he could forget about the boy, however, the movement of the crowd shifted and Dream was shoved violently in his direction.

Fixing his tie, Dream glanced, annoyed, over at the door he’d planned on heading through. When the crowd had moved around, his route had been blocked by a clump of shouty TV spokespeople holding microphones, and he had almost no chance of getting through for at least a few minutes. With a sigh, he headed over to the kid and leaned against the wall next to where he was sitting.

“Are you alright?” Dream asked absentmindedly, surveying the crowd with his hands shoved in his pockets. “You don’t seem too happy about this whole thing.”

The younger one scoffed. “I’m not sure why it matters to you. Nobody else cares what I have to say.”

“I’ve got nothing better to do. This place is a mess, I can barely even see the floor, much less get where I need to be getting.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway. This whole thing is doomed.”

His attention caught, Dream looked back at the kid, who was fidgeting with the lens on the camera. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t fucking know what I mean, because nobody will pay attention to what I have to say. I’ve seen things happening- all the scientists in their fancy lab coats that look like they’ve never seen a speck of dust? They’re acting…weird.”

“How so?”

“Tired. Dizzy. Out of focus a lot of the time…I don’t really know how to describe it. But I’m pretty sure it’s got something to do with the damned Project. And nobody will listen to me. A reporter patted me on the head, did you know that? Like I’m a child, like I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Dream stared at him for a few seconds. This boy…he’d noticed what was up. Even if he didn’t have the data to prove it, it seemed that he’d noticed more than what the entire staff of Project Allium had. If he could get just one adult to pay attention to what he was saying, he might save lives.

He might save Apian’s life. Dream couldn’t let that happen.

Pasting a reassuring grin onto his face, Dream stared into the kid’s eyes and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Look, kid-”

“Tubbo. My name is Tubbo.”

“Tubbo, then. Doctor Apian is one of the smartest men on the planet right now, and he’s got hundreds of other people who have calculated for everything that might go wrong. I assure you, these people leave less room for error than NASA. If there was a mistake in their calculations…well, they’ve probably got ten backup plans. Don’t worry about it, okay?”

Tubbo stared up at him, anger melting into resignation. “I guess.”

“Don’t worry- in a couple of weeks, when everything goes successfully, you’ll see. Just take some deep breaths.”

“Don’t patronize me. I’m not ten, you know.”

“I’m not. I get irrational fears too- ignore it, and soon your brain will be proven wrong.”

And with that, Dream strode off into the crowd, shoulders back and chin held high. Back in elementary school, people had crossed their fingers behind their backs when they lied about something. Dream didn’t need to do that anymore.

Tubbo had been right that there was something wrong, but he wouldn’t be awake to realize it.

A more menacing smile began to break through the friendly facade he’d put up for Tubbo. Soon they’d see.

They’d all be sorry, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop him.

Chapter Text

When the cat had meowed and the two maybe-kidnappers had seen him, Tommy’s first thought was that he was done for.

Sure, the men had been bantering about their cat the way that Tommy used to do with a few of the nice older kids at the group home, but he had no guarantee they wouldn’t turn on him the second they spotted him. After all, he’d touched their cat. People tended to get very aggressive about pets, in his experience, and even if they weren’t the child-kidnapping type they might be the throw-you-out-into-the-forest-for-petting-poor-Snowball type. He’d gotten in trouble for less.

To his surprise, however, neither of them reacted aggressively. The pink one kind of just acted tired, like he’d lived a thousand lifetimes in the span of an hour, and the other treated Tommy like one would treat a feral raccoon or a pathetic starving cat- probably closer to the raccoon, if he was being honest.

Despite the apparent passiveness, Tommy wasn’t going to be baited into a trap. If they suddenly turned on him (for whatever reason), he could probably take Wilbur the bitch boy, but his brother (Technoblade, he’d introduced himself as. Tommy couldn’t figure out if he was joking or not) was a much more formidable opponent.

“Tommy, please,” Wilbur sighed. “You can’t just stay up there forever, it’s got to be so uncomfortable.”

In truth, the wood of the beams he was crouching on had been digging into his knees for quite some time, but he couldn’t tell Wilbur that. It would mean admitting defeat.

“Fuck you! I’m not coming down, bitch boy!”

“Why not? We need to talk about what happened to everybody.”

“Thanks, but I’m not caught up with politics.”

“That- I mean how everybody fell asleep, not the state of the world economically.”

Tommy pursed his lips. He didn’t want to think about what was going on outside of the cabin. It was easier to ignore whatever was happening and to push away the thoughts of a possible apocalypse than to acknowledge it. It made everything seem more real.

Wilbur’s face fell at Tommy’s lack of response. He obviously felt the same way, if his expression was as telling as his body language, but Tommy wasn’t willing to back down.

A few seconds passed, and they’d lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. Below him, Wilbur was fidgeting restlessly with his fingers. He was still sitting in the chair as he had been earlier, but his posture was ramrod-straight- completely opposite to the way Tommy was hunched over to be able to perch in the air without his head brushing against the ceiling. The tense atmosphere was only broken by Techno emerging once more from the basement, cradling Friend in his arms with a toolbox clamped firmly against his side.

Techno glanced around, his eyes narrowing as he stared up at Tommy. “Kid, are you going to get down from there, or am I going to have to drag you down myself?”

Tommy stiffened. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wanna bet?”

“No-” Tommy hissed. “Don’t come up here…I’ll claw your fucking eyes out!”

With a roll of his eyes, Techno crossed the room and pulled himself up the ladder. Tommy screeched, frantically scrambling backward across the wooden supports while keeping his eyes locked on the other.

“Tommy,” Techno sing-songed. He was standing on the loft, one hand outstretched and resting on the first of the wooden rafters.

The boy in question gasped, narrowing his eyes at his pursuer. “I knew you two were kidnappers! That’s exactly what a kidnapper would say.”

“What, your name?”

“Well, yeah, but in that tone! The fuckin’ creepy one!”

In one smooth movement, Techno pushed himself up over the railing and onto the first beam, swinging his legs over so they dangled below him and he could sit comfortably, and grinned at him.

“Does the pink hair at least make me less intimidating?”

“Hansel and Gretel’s witch lived in a cottage made of candy, and she still ate children. Your hair doesn’t matter,” Wilbur called from his chair.

Techno didn’t respond, only rolling his eyes at his brother and climbing to the next beam. Tommy, who by that time had climbed as far across the room as he could go and was curled uncomfortably against the slanted ceiling, bared his teeth at him.

“Tommy, c’mon,” Techno sighed, extending his arm, palm facing up, towards the boy. “You need food, and I’m not giving you any droppable objects while you’re up here.”

“Fuck off.”

“Bruh, okay then, you leave me no choice.”

Before Tommy could blink, Techno was by his side and had scooped him up and thrown him over his shoulder. Just before he could open his mouth and start yelling, however, the man had swung down to the ground and dumped him in a heap on the couch.

“What the FUCK, TECHNO?!” he exclaimed, scrambling to untangle himself from the mess of blankets.

Techno shrugged. “I told you I’d drag you down myself. Wilbur,” he shot over his shoulder, “Heat up a can of soup from the basement while I fix this radio. And Tommy, quit acting like a raccoon or I’ll have to throw you out with the rest of them and shoo you away with a broom.”

Tommy crossed his arms. “Fine, but only because we need to talk to Tubbo.”

“Tubbo?” Wilbur asked.

“Yeah, I think I mentioned him before- he’s another one of the survivors. I was going to meet him at some fuckin' airport when it started snowing and I had to run into the woods.”

“An airport…” Wilbur tapped at his chin thoughtfully. “Y’know, I didn’t think too much about how the planes are doing, what with everyone being unconscious and all that. Most of them would have crashed if they didn’t have an autopilot or something.”

Tommy paled. “There must be at least one pilot that survived, though. After all, we found each other…there’s got to be loads of people still awake.”

“Even if they are, I feel bad for anyone trying to land a plane by themself in this weather. Ground control gone, copilots gone, and a blizzard to top it all off. I wouldn’t put much hope in them surviving.”

“Please just make us some soup and stop theorizing about how many people are dying…I’m hungry.”

Before everything went to shit, Captain Puffy had been having a pretty good day.

She’d woken up thirty minutes before her alarm went off, made herself a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs, and set off with a spring in her step.

Even though she learned when she got there that the weather was forecasted to be snowy where she was headed that evening, the morning sky outside was a brilliant blue, and nothing could wipe the grin off of her face- not even missing her bus to work, rude coworkers, or that one grumpy flight attendant who seemed to dislike her for no reason.

After all, Puffy had the job she’d been dreaming of since she was a kid- she was a pilot. The job was stressful, sure- but she loved it, and for some reason, that particular day felt lucky. Something big was going to happen, something that would change her life.

Halfway through the flight when the clouds turned green, Puffy started to find out what that something was.

“Beautiful weather today,” her copilot had remarked, breaking the peaceful silence that had been hanging over the cockpit. “It’s hard to believe that there’ll be snow later.”

“It is nice out.” Puffy wasn’t really paying attention- most of her focus was on the spot outside the window where she’d just seen an interestingly patterned bird.

“Cold, though.”

“Mhm.”

“Ah, but it is March. Not even winter yet! Honestly, yesterday it felt kind of like summer. Weather sure is weird sometimes.”

Puffy nodded slowly. In this kind of scenario, it was better to let them run their course than to speak up. She’d flown with that copilot before, and he wasn’t actually expecting a response. In a few minutes, they’d be back to only the occasional comment about the flight course.

“Oh, hey, look at those weird clouds!”

Or not.

Puffy sighed, slumping down in her chair. “What weird clouds?”

“Look, over there…doesn’t it look kind of green to you?”

She glanced around half-heartedly. “Nope. Must have just been a trick of the light.”

“No, no, I swear I saw it. It was green, I promise.”

“Well, I have heard of green skies being a sign of bad storms, but I didn’t see anything. I’m sure it’s-”

Before Puffy could finish her sentence, however, the plane flew through a patch of clouds, and her vision was flooded with green.

Visibility outside the cockpit window was almost zero, and even the air inside was tinged with color. Beside her, Puffy saw the copilot lurch to his feet, gasping for air, and then tumble to the ground.

“Collins?!” she shouted his name, twisting around in her seat and seeing the man’s contorted body on the floor. “Are you alright?! Wake up, god damn it!”

He didn’t respond. The only sign she had that he was still alive was the shallow movement of his chest, but other than that he was completely out of it. The green tinge that the air was giving his skin made him look uncomfortably like a corpse.

Gritting her teeth, Puffy faced forward and gripped the controls. The plane was tossing and shaking from the turbulence, and before she could check on her copilot she had to get the flight under control. Her first priority was getting the plane safely to the airport- there would be doctors there.

After a few minutes with her fingers clamped so tightly around the instruments her knuckles turned white, the plane managed to pull out of the pocket of turbulence and the sky was clear again. She slumped back in her seat. Normally, in that situation, she’d be a lot calmer, but with the mysterious green cloud and Collins collapsing, her mood wasn’t exactly relaxed.

Puffy dragged her hand across her face, rubbing roughly at her eyelids. She hadn’t realized she was barely blinking, and her eyes were uncomfortably dry. In addition, her whole body felt shaky and weak- like she wouldn’t be able to get up out of her seat if she tried.

As she slowly got her bearings back, however, she became aware of something perhaps even more concerning. The radio, which usually spat out updates on the status of planes around them and the airport they were headed to, was silent excluding the occasional hiss of static. She probably should’ve noticed it sooner- as soon as they’d hit that cloud, air traffic control should’ve been trying to contact them.

With hands that were still shaking, Puffy hurriedly adjusted dials to try and regain contact. The radio, however, only sputtered like a dying candle.

Puffy leaned back in her seat. The confined space felt too warm all of a sudden, and the sun shining through the window was irritating her eyes. She was supposed to be a pilot, supposed to be calm even in stressful situations…but for some reason, she couldn’t seem to gather her wits. And the co-pilot was still lying on the ground.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, it registered that she should probably go get the medic, or at least make an announcement to the passengers about the turbulence…before she could finish the thought, though, the door to the cockpit slammed open and one of the flight attendants burst in.

He was someone she’d flown with a couple of times before- a guy named George. The only reason she actually knew his name was because of the way his dry humor sharply contrasted with the calming presence most of the other flight attendants tried to give off, but they’d never interacted more than a few brief hellos.

The moment their eyes met, George’s knees practically fell out from under him. He pushed the copilot’s body out of the way with his food and collapsed against the wall of the plane, curling up into a ball with the palms of his hands pressed into his eyes. A second of shocked silence followed, and then George let out a muffled scream.

“I…” Puffy paused, hand twitching at her side. “Are you…alright?”

“No, I’m not fucking alright.” He made a noise that could only be described as a strangled giggle. “Would you be alright if everyone else on the plane fell asleep simultaneously? And of course I assumed everyone in here had done the same, so I was preparing myself to have to fly a plane even though I’ve literally never done that before, but the only alternative would be dying. Would you be alright if that happened to you?”

“...Well, yeah, because I know how to fly a plane. It’s kind of my job.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yup. But you’re right, that does sound pretty traumatizing.” A beat passed, and Puffy’s brain caught up with what he’d said. “Hold on, what do you mean everyone else on the plane fell asleep? You’re joking, right?”

“I’m not joking, but I am probably dead. We crashed, this is all just some kind of messed up dream before I go to hell.”

Puffy glanced back at the sky outside the plane. “I assure you, you’re not dead.”

“And how would you know that?”

“Because I’m too good of a pilot to crash this plane for no reason. You’re not dead yet, but there’s a bad snowstorm coming later and the airport isn’t answering me. Nobody is, in fact.”

George buried his head in his arms. “Oh my fucking god.”