Ghostie Bois Inc

Chapter Seven: The Stove

   Dream stopped writing and set down his pen. He pressed his lips into a line and thought about it. "It's been five years," He said, choosing his words carefully. "Admittedly, some people have completely moved on. But some haven't entirely, like, there's me for example," He said. "And Wilbur, both Niki and Fundy, they really miss you. Techno, remember Ranboo? That kid used to follow you around all the time," he said and smiled slightly. "He's seventeen now. Still talks about you sometimes, he's a good kid. And you'd better believe that people miss you Phil. Like...I'll just say it, without you the levels of odd chaos have definitely gone up in the past few years." 

   "They do?" Wilbur asked as soon as Dream had stopped speaking. Niki and Fundy had been his best friends...he'd missed them so much. None of them really remembered all too much the first couple months or so after dying, but there were blurs here and there. One of those blurs that went by like a confusing streak, was that of Fundy and Niki. They had come over to the house, while it was relatively in shambles still, and only stood outside. Niki had tried to keep her resolve up, as best she could at any rate. Fundy had seemed angry. Wilbur didn't remember much of what he'd said, but he did recall watching his friend frustrated wipe his eyes, and storm off. 

   He hadn't seen his friends in so very long. 

   Dream nodded. "I don't really talk to either of them a lot anymore...especially Fundy, but, I couldn't imagine them not missing you," he said. 

   "Did..." Tubbo started, and all attention, both living and dead, was turned to him. "Did it hurt, when you all died?" He asked. Ever since he'd seen that newspaper, he'd had the haunting question inside his head. 

   The box squealed with frequency, the reaction to a scoff. "Yeah, it hurt," Techno said. "I was crushed by scaffolding, it pinned me down and I bled out. Wilbur and Phil both suffocated to death. Painful," he summarized.

   Dream looked stuck for a moment. "You...got crushed by the ceiling?" He asked. He'd stopped writing in his journal all together, maybe this was the sort of thing you document later. 

   If Techno nodded, no one but his brothers could see. "Bottom line," Phil said after a moment. "Yes, it did hurt. We're all still here, and it did hurt." 

   Tommy had stayed respectfully silent throughout this conversation. He admittedly didn't know what to say, or even how to ask it. He looked down at his hands and nodded to some things said. After another restless bout of silence, he finally knew what he was going to say. "How did you guys die?" He asked. 

   Tubbo looked over at him. "Um...Tommy? They just said that," He said, slightly confused. 

   Tommy shook his head. "No, no, I know that," he explained. "I meant, what happened? How did the fire start?" He asked. 

   Techno looked to Phil. Even though he knew the 'answer', he still always looked to Phil for the answer when they'd pondered it. After all, he'd been asleep when Phil had discovered the blaze. Phil only shrugged, like normal, and shook his head. "We have no idea," he said, and his brothers listened to how his voice crackled oddly through the box's speakers. "We didn't do anything wrong."

   Dream sat up a little straighter after hearing that, frowning and looking slightly above the box. "Wait, you don't know?" He asked. "Didn't you guys leave the stove on? That's what the fire department told us," he said. 

   Wilbur soon frowned as well, and flipped up in the air. "We had pizza that night," he said. "We didn't use the stove at all." 

   "Then how did the stove burn down your house?" Tubbo asked, looking from Dream to Tommy. He settled on looking at Dream for the answer. He'd since been going through his journal again, stopping on a page scribbled in ink.