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They took his mask first.
When they dragged Dream in chains to the prison, the night dead and cold as they let him bleed out, throwing him to Sam and arguing angrily between themselves, the mask was the first thing to go. It was half shattered already, bits of wood falling to the ground in splinters, like teeth Dream thought. Rows of teeth. More and more of it fell away as they walked across the plains, until only half of it remained – a sickle moon pressed against his cheekbone.
Sam lifted it from his face, his fingers ice against the hot blood rushing down Dream’s nose.
The mask dropped.
Sam didn’t say a word, but Dream knew what he was thinking. He just knew.
It was ugly, the scars coiling across his face like vines, peeling back skin that had never healed right. Light pink, like plastic, or embryos, tearing right into his left eye. He hadn’t been able to see through it in years, the weight of it dead in his socket.
Sam didn’t say a word, but he didn’t need to. His expression weaved hidden words, ones screaming terror, others deep, unspoken atrocities.
Dream smiled at him.
“Boo,” he whispered.
Sam shivered.
The right-side of Dream’s face was undamaged. He looked boyish, with his big green eye and easy grin. His smile lines were soft, catching his laughter and pinning it to his cheeks, where freckles kissed across his skin, a gentle flush colouring them in the summertime.
Not that it mattered. Dream always wore his mask, that was the point of it: to be worn. He’d willingly submerged his world in darkness, like he was sleeping, and because of it he’d forgotten how bright everything was, how horribly vivid. It was confusing, the wave of visual stimuli hitting him from all angles. The obsidian blocks, the long white tiles, Sam’s black eyes, pinned by pupils flashing red, red, red.
Dream took a staggering breath, trying not to lose his composure.
Sam placed the mask on the front counter, taking Dream by the shoulders and dragging him from the foyer. Dream skirted his eye back, aching to hide behind the safety of painted wood and the crooked smiley face George had drawn for him.
But he was afforded no such luxury, and soon the mask faded from his vision entirely.
…
The lava hurt to look at. It burned, its blood orange glow climbing up the walls, the platform, the bottom half of their faces. Dream blinked several times, trying to lessen the way everything seemed to vibrate, colours shaking like a beating pulse.
His nerves were fried.
The platform groaned, taking them across the abyss and into the little black box hanging suspended in the heart of the cavern.
Dream heard the warden’s hand move before it landed on him, his ears picking up the slight crack of his fingers, the sudden hitch in his breath, the shift of his palm against his pants.
Sam pushed him in.
Dream stumbled into the cell, his eyes sliding closed. It was easier to cast away his vision altogether, he decided, sitting cross-legged on the ground and facing away from the lava. He clicked his tongue, the echo reverberating back to him, mapping the space in his head.
Dream clicked again.
Click, click, click, click.
…
Before the mask, Dream could see everything. Every insect crawling up the camphor trees, making their way through sap and termite nests. Every bird hidden in the canopy, feathers ruffled and eyes wide and staring. Every person that went by: a woman and her baby, a group of kids, an old man with a stick.
With eyes these details were colourful, vivid.
With eyes these details were easy to miss.
Dream had missed the wolf hunting his trail, hidden in the undergrowth before it pounced, sinking its teeth into half his face. His flesh torn, his sight taken from him.
It was unbridled chaos, any and all semblance of control violently stripped from him the minute he let his guard down.
It was his own fault.
He’d missed it because he hadn’t been listening. He was distracted, taking in the woodlands and breathing in the rain soaked air, George by his side, talking to him about nothing and everything.
He’d missed it because he’d forgotten he was prey: a stag in the woods.
Blood spilling into his mouth, the stench of soil and sweat mixed with slobber, his screaming nerves: they were good reminders.
A stilted black had overtaken his vision, like hands shielding his eyes, fingers pressing into his eyelids, and when he came to half his eyesight was blurred, everything too bright all at once. It was worse seeing the world off-kilter, he thought, like he was spinning in circles, and he hated the scars: ugly, howling mutations.
So Dream made himself a mask, tying it behind his head and erasing his sight completely. Like a snap of his fingers, a click of his tongue, everything vanished. Every single thing, even George.
“Are you sure?” George whispered. It was too late. The mask was on, the mask was permanent.
“Yes,” Dream repeated.
George wrapped his fingers around his, bringing his knuckles to his lips. His breath was warm, ghosting his skin. “But how will you see?”
“I can’t see anyway.”
"You can a little bit.”
Dream laughed, squeezing back. He could feel the mould of George’s hand in his own, the arching lines of his palm. Three down the middle, two interconnected.
“I don’t need to see, George. I just need to listen.”
George sighed, long, exaggerated, but he didn’t let go of his hand. “You never listen, Dream. You’re not even listening now.”
Dream cocked his head to the side, smirking even though he knew George couldn’t see it. “Sorry, what was that?” Then, in a poor imitation of his accent, he added, “Can you repeat everything you just said?”
George ripped his hand away and punched Dream in the shoulder. The blow came out of nowhere – a spark in the dark. “You’re such an idiot.”
Dream fumbled, trying to find George’s wrist, and when he found it he grasped it firmly, following the sound of his voice. “Now you know how it feels to be me.”
“Oh, ha ha Dream,” George drawled, but he was smiling. Dream knew he was smiling, could hear it in the way he said his name.
Dream came back to himself, smelling the stale air in his cell, his own rotting odour, the bile staining his shirt.
That was a long time ago now.
…
It was when Dream realised he was prey that his hearing became better.
It made him aware of his surroundings, learning the way every living thing breathed. Everything had movement and everything had a heartbeat, he reminded himself. The world was a series of reactions, a never ending loop of behavioural patterns. And he could hear it, if he really wanted to.
It started with him clicking to himself, paying attention to how the sound left his mouth, reverberating off rock walls first, through vast spaces later. Everything was so loud he realised. There was noise everywhere, and it was distinct, separate, forming colour in his mind. George’s voice was blue, like a streamlet. There was something airy about it, lilting up and up and up until it was almost transparent in his mind, like he was sinking his legs in the creek.
Sapnap’s voice was raspier, like sparklers at midnight. Popping circles of sound piercing through the veil: red, then orange, then gold. Between him and George, Dream could pick their voices in seconds, even if they were swallowed by peals of laughter, or screaming shouts.
Everything was like that.
Dream could picture the earth, understand distance, understand the landing without taking the steps. All he needed to do was click, following the echoes and chiming into the world’s audio frequencies.
He wasn’t being hyperbolic. Dream could see everything.
Even here in his little cell, eyes sewn shut and imagining the world from his memories.
Yes, Dream remembered it well.
When the air grew cold – thin gales pushing through the trees, sending their leaves flying and their branches shaking – Dream knew the day was shifting into night. The bird's call told him, as well as the banshee wail of the cicadas pinched deep into the forest. Ah, the sun was setting then.
He lifted his hood over his head, trying to shield his ears from being nipped in the wind. He then slipped his fingerless gloves off, replacing them with thicker, leather ones. All fingers in place. Dream snickered to himself.
He reached for his axe and slipped behind the sloping hills he’d taken refuge in. He couldn’t stay here for long. He needed to escape deeper into the forest, let the winding pine trails take him.
They were still hunting him.
It was all a game of course. A training exercise for his hearing, as well as an ego boost for Sapnap, if he could catch him. The challenge was simple: he needed to outlast his friends for as long as possible. They could get hurt, he could not.
He needed to become untouchable.
Invincible.
God-like.
Dream laughed as he slipped back into the shadows, every step calculated. It all sounded ridiculous. He just wanted better control over the terrain, to oversee everything before he was knocked to his knees, pushed flat into the dirt. He was only learning to bite first, to be the thing hidden in the undergrowth. He supposed that was power. But what was power to a blind man?
Snap.
The sound screeched in his ears, surrounding the crown of his head like fingers, pulling, pulling, pulling--
Dream sidestepped the arrow before it even left George’s bow.
“Fuck.”
Dream smirked, hearing the group breathe out of sync. Different sets of lungs mingling sound together. Different colours, different melodies.
Dream raised his axe.
He let them move first.
Two pairs of feet charged from the side, sprinting side-by-side in an attempt to ambush him. Dream swung the axe into the tree beside him, hitting it one, two, three times before it came crashing down, landing heavily in the mud between them.
More curses, then another arrow. He heard it cut the air, whistling louder and louder until it was close enough for Dream catch, taking it in his own bow and shooting it back to where he knew George was perched, hidden under the roots.
He aimed to hit his tunic. Never to break skin.
He heard a definite thud, a shoulder hitting bark, then another stream of loud curses.
“DREAM!”
Dream grinned.
He never missed.
And then he ran, leaving them squabbling in the velvet darkness, already taken back into the forest’s arms.
…
Back then, it was a newfound clarity. Sight in darkness, sight in hurricanes, sight in mist.
Sight behind the mask.
He wasn’t prey anymore.
He was the hunter.
…
Dream chirped to himself, laying curled on the ground. There wasn’t much in the cell. The echoes flowed back to him easily, half convincing him that the entire world was his box. Nothing more and nothing less. There was no one to listen to, no one to laugh with, no one to reach out and touch.
He parted his lips, voice coming out low and shaky, like he was a bird at dawn waiting for the sun to pierce the earth with light. A lone songbird in the rose garden, the sky caught in a blue haze. No one was awake but him. No one was willing to break the silence.
Softly, Dream began to sing, tapping his fingers idly as his clock ticked on.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
…
Dream had always hated when things slipped from him.
It made him feel uneasy, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop it. No prayer he could whisper, no collapsing into a heap, begging, please, please, let everything stay the same.
Tommy was like that. His voice squawking, travelling behind his retinas and sinking into his skull, reminding Dream of all the damage he could do, all the damage he had already done.
And he had come out of nowhere. Unprecedented, completely unpredictable.
It made Dream’s skin crawl.
He’d predicted the wars, predicted Wilbur’s death, predicted exile.
They were all so easy to read. He could hear it in the inflection of their voices. Emotions flooding from their throats, all connecting back to attachment.
They couldn’t read him so well. Then again, they only relied on their eyes, and details were easy to miss.
So Dream had listened, and he’d listened well.
…
“Just say you hate me,” George said, his voice cracking at the edges, like shattered glass.
Dream didn’t hate George. Where did he get that idea from? He only wanted to keep him safe. Needed to, needed to make sure he stayed. George would do no good as king. They’d kill him, just to tear Dream’s heart out. They’d take him away to make Dream weak. This was beyond George. It wasn’t about him.
Dream shook his head quickly, reaching for George’s hand. Easy to find, easy to know.
George pulled away sharply. Dream kept his arm outstretched, fingers searching, searching.
George didn’t make a sound.
Where did he go?
Where did he go?
Where did he go?
Dream couldn’t feel his eyes on him anymore.
George’s dark brown eyes. A tender gaze saved only for him, like Dream hung the stars, or was the only thing keeping the world spinning. There was something warm hidden in those eyes. It reminded Dream of chocolate spread on their toast in the morning, George sneaking a spoonful in his mouth before Dream snatched it away from him, giggling as George tried to wrestle it back, those sweet eyes crinkling at the corners, sparkling like water in sunlight.
Dream did not know how George was looking at him now.
He couldn’t sense him at all.
Finally, George gave him something, a whisper meant only for him, flooded with an apathy that snuck down Dream’s throat and caught his lungs in a tight, phantom grip.
“You never listen, do you Dream? You don’t hear me. You don’t even hear yourself.”
…
It didn’t take long for him to start thinking that maybe his sense of hearing was god-like. Why not, he could sense everything, he was above everything. It didn’t matter where George had gone, didn’t matter that Sapnap had drawn back, voice confused, like he couldn’t trust Dream.
He got rid of threat after threat, pouncing on his enemies and ripping them to shreds. He discovered that that was what power was to a blind man, because he wasn’t blind at all. It uprooted him, kept him safe.
It was goddamn fantastic.
Dream looked between Tommy and Tubbo, Tommy sounding increasingly more frantic, the pitch of his voice edging on wailing, while Tubbo was grey and wilting, the words thick in his mouth. “It’s about time anyway.”
“Say your goodbyes,” he heard himself say, lost in thought. This was the end. This was where everything was leading to, the wars, the violence. This was where the hunt ended: two boys holding onto each other, whispering quietly, their tears echoing, echoing.
But it was going to be worth it in the end. The world would resume its usual pace, everyone would finally be safe, and Dream wouldn’t have to worry about being out of control again. This was how it was always meant to be. This was the stage he had set, the thing that would make him whole again.
George would come back eventually. He would see that Dream was right.
“Goodbye Tommy,” Tubbo said weakly. Dream heard him shift towards him.
He readied his axe.
Checkmate--
And then a voice sounded behind him. Punz’s voice. “I’m sorry, Dream.”
A chill tore down his spine. When had Punz--
“But you should’ve paid me more.”
And suddenly there were a myriad of voices, several footsteps echoing the area, mapping it mapping it and Dream couldn’t think, couldn’t process the enormity of it, Tommy’s voice sending him into a frenzy, distorting everything further. Dream latched onto it, stepping forward, sniffing Tommy out and growling--
“Hey, hey, hey!”
Sapnap’s voice.
Dream stilled, plummeting into silence.
“Step away from them.”
Dream obeyed, backing up.
Quackity’s voice snaked around him next. Mocking, belittling. “You fucked up, Dream.”
Dream dropped his sword.
…
Dream awoke again in the prison. He raised his hand to his face, trying to find the mask. But his palm landed on his mouth instead, fingers spreading to his cheeks: sallow, pale, bloodied.
He opened his eyes.
Half darkness, half light. One eye as bright as it was when he was a child, the other split apart; his deepest shame.
Dream sat up.
He could hear everything. The rush of lava, the creaking platform, the warden’s heavy voice.
He could hear, but he could not see.
He could watch, but he could not listen.
Dream had nothing, nothing at all.
Not even a mask.
All he could do was wait for the wolves to come prowling.