Archive of Our Own ^beta

This place was a shithole, Tommy had decided the moment he arrived. He and Dream reached Logstedshire's harbor. The town, which overlooked the port, barely looked less desolate than the towering cliffs it sat upon or the rocky beach it gave way to.

At first, Tommy thought this was one of Dream’s sick games. For Tommy to be forced to sit in a shitty damp boat for several hours just so he could be killed in a place where nobody would ever hear him scream or see him seemed like the sort of thing Dream would do. But Tommy quickly learned that ‘Logstedshire’ was not abandoned, and that Dream hadn’t brought him there to kill him.

And that was honestly so much worse.

Logstedshire was inhabited by people who fit the bleak town quite well, and it didn’t take more than the first few minutes they arrived there before Tommy realized that there was no chance of salvation in the form of any of its townsfolk . All of them had regarded both Tommy and Dream with silent hostility when Dream marched Tommy right through its town square and then past its gates, and the few who had met his eyes looked away immediately.

Tommy burned with rage for himself at their apathy; the only thing that kept it bottled up at the time was the wordless threat of Dream’s gleaming netherite ax.

But instinctually, once Dream had left him alone, Tommy knew that he couldn’t go back into the town, At least not without Dream around for protection. With little more than stone tools, he was fucked if anything happened to him before Dream came back.

Tommy’s legs ached as he walked down the grassy hill, and sweat inexplicably rolled down his forehead despite how cold he was. The cliffs tapered off here, gradually giving way to exposed beaches that stretched on for what seemed to go on endlessly.

At the very least, the trees were far enough uphill and on their own distinctly raised mound that once high tide swallowed up the beach, they would not be submerged.

His legs increasingly felt as if they were being replaced by two heavy boulders, and he nearly collapsed once he finally reached the trees.

“Fucking shit.”

Tommy swore and he closed his eyes, his chest felt like it sunk. The sun would set soon. He’d have to make due with what little supplies he had to make a shelter until Dream came back.

After he rested for a while, Tommy stood back up and rubbed his wind burnt face. His eyes wandered over the small hill where the trees grew. Nestled partially into the earth mound, there was a sunbleached oak trapdoor.

Tommy tugged at the trapdoor’s handles half-heartedly. What he hadn’t expected was for the door to open to an interior that somehow felt much larger than the small hill it was nestled in. Figuring he had nothing left to lose from a bit of exploring, he went in.

Tommy hadn’t needed to duck when he stepped into the hollow interior to get a better look.

Once sunlight filtered through the open trap door and into the small room, it became apparent to Tommy that someone owned this house, from the moth bitten green rug at his feet to the corridors which led further to more rooms, or further underground.

Carefully, Tommy eased his hand off of the trapdoor, letting it close with a soft woosh. He made his way down the first corridor and had half expected to be jumped by a spider or creeper. Instead, Tommy walked into a small, but clean kitchen, well-lit with a glowstone lantern.

Tommy opened a cupboard just above the kitchen sink, spurred on by the sudden hunger that gnawed at his stomach once he entered the kitchen. His heart leapt with joy when he spotted a can of mushroom stew and a jar of pickled beets.

Tommy knew he couldn’t afford to be picky, so without hesitation he snatched the jar of beets out of the cupboards. It felt like he’d nearly broken his wrist in his franticness to open the jar and shove the food down his mouth.

His hands shook, and in what felt like just another cruel joke, the jar shattered on the floor. Petrified, Tommy stood there and stared at the shards of glass and beets on the floor. If whoever lived in this place hadn’t heard him before, they definitely had now.

But that was the least of his concerns. The dull hunger pains he’d learnt to ignore over the last few days were back in their full force. Tommy just wanted to eat. So, he turned his attention to the can of mushroom stew. Tommy hadn’t found any sort of can-opener while scrounging around the kitchen. Undeterred, Tommy banged the metal lid of the can onto the sink’s countertop.

After several minutes of fruitless banging, Tommy stopped. As if all of the fight had drained out his body at once, he leaned over the sink.

He felt something akin to a raindrop land on his head. He turned his head up expecting to see a leak in the roof.

The ceiling above him had a large, dark stain, and to Tommy’s building dread he realized that it wasn’t water.

He backed away, heart pounding and bile rising in his throat. Surely, his overactive and tired eyes were deceiving him, and the stain above him wasn’t a sickly brownish red.

It didn’t smell like blood or any other kind of bodily fluid- it didn’t smell at all. Perhaps there was a burst pipe somewhere in the little home’s ceiling?

A liquid droplet fell from the over-saturated ceiling stain onto his open palm. It took him a second, but  then all at once it seemed, the overwhelming metallic stench of blood flooded his nostrils.

Tommy backed away. The latent horror of the situation made his stomach sink like a stone. If that was blood like he feared, then whatever had caused it couldn’t be far away considering it hadn’t oxidized fully.

He needed to leave.


He needed to leave now.


Backing into the little house’s entrance, he nearly scraped himself in his rush to leave. Once out in the dying sunlight, Tommy looked around wildly. Logstedshire sat in the distance, with the ocean now out of its high tide to his right.

“Tommy? Tommy!” The sound of Dream’s voice jolted Tommy out of his racing head, but it brought no relief to his racing heart.