SOMETIMES • DreamNotFound ✓

11: I Don't Know Why

Truthfully, there are different versions of this part of the story that float around. No one truly knows what happened, no one truly understands, but this is what we know:

Time, emotions, and thoughts can be manipulated, and to think just because one is human means they're incapable of creating cruelties is a short-handed thought.

While DreamXD gave his humanity to the human Dream, that never meant that Dream acted like one.

Months went by without feeling. Months of silence and waiting, for nothing. The human world didn't reach out for DreamXD, pleading for his return. No human attempted opening the portals to the end. No one called his name.

Now, emotionless and with no strings attached to the mortal world, DreamXD sat in contemplative silence, eyes turned outward of the castle windows. He could no longer hear the cries that came from the underworld. He could no longer reach out and feel for anyone that stayed upon the mortal plane.

Months were spent watching the sun rise and fall like bated breaths. Months were spent in regaining old memories that hell had pulled from the dust for him. Though he no longer spent time in his George's company, every George from the past haunted his memories.

Every now and again, old memories from past lives would suddenly wash over him, catching his breath and sweeping him off his feet. He swears that the demon from hell cursed him every time he sees them coming— every time he feels his skin boil and his head spin, and the old memories from the previous worlds he's opened come crashing in, he knows it was that demon's doing.

It's hard for him to keep focus on the current life he lives— on the fact now he's a god rather than a human. Every past life he lived was he human, and now, he was a god.

He was only a god as a punishment. The last world he escaped from closed too soon. His past George helped him escape, whether it was consciously or unconsciously and that in itself had grave consequences.

It was so bitter to think about, DreamXD thought. Every world he lived in could disappear in just a second. All the hard work that had been put on for decades could be put to rest, and never exist, if the end portal was opened and he'd caved into her taunts.

The End's keeper was a monster, but he was too. In each life he held, he fell into her taunts and reopened the portal for a new world to be started. He was the cause for so many wrongdoings.

If only he could feel, he thinks he'd cave in to her taunts at any given moment. He thinks he'd open the portal and hope for a better life. He thinks he'd open the portal and pray to be a good human, a good human that meets a human George and lives normally. He thinks he'll cease to fall into the End keeper's temptation, he thinks he'll be normal and live and die normally.

Ever since he stepped into hell, he thinks things make more sense. 

This is just another world that was built up, and it too, could be destroyed.

Sitting upwards to the window that overlooked the in-between's castle, DreamXD took in a deep breath. He couldn't help but think that the life he lived was all fake. Emotionless— painted together— pieced together by numbers and codes and—

"DreamXD."

The world stilled.

The diety turned, only to be faced with an empty and cold room. Lifeless was everything around him, and yet, the quiet voice that called for him was anything but that.

"DreamXD?"

The window shimmered in front of him, taunting him. It was the mortal plane that was calling out to him, at last. Standing now and extending his wings, DreamXD listened closer to the familiarity of the voice calling out to him.

"DreamXD!"

Panic struck in his chest, a feeling he hadn't felt in what could have been years. It wasn't his panic, though. It was too deep and rooted for it to be his, too built up for it to have manifested from the depths of the emotionless pit he'd created for himself.

"Help me!"

The world flooded before him into colors— shimmering and wavering in his view as he felt his feet ascend from the once cold floors. White shifted to a multitude of dark and weary colors. His stomach turned, eyes flickering shut and open as feet returned to the prickling feeling of grass.

He stood steadily in a thickly settled forest in the middle of the night.

Silence rang as he looked about himself, looking for any sign of life.

"Make it stop, please!" a quiet voice suddenly called out from in front of him.

With no caution, he moved forward. Feathered wings ruffled behind him as he stammered through thick grass toward a thick tree trunk yards in front of him.

Soft sniffles rang from in front of him.

"I'm dreaming," the familiar voice said quietly. "Just another dream— it's not real— it's not real—"

Rounding the thick trunk of the tree that had been in front of him, the diety looked downward. There, sitting against the roots of the tree, hiding in the grass was him. His arms had been tucked over his head as if he were protecting himself. His head was pressed against his knees as he shivered in the cold night in nothing but a t-shirt and pair of jeans.

Pale skin was littered with scars and blood— and though DreamXD couldn't feel— he was sick.

Loud rustling from above caught the god's attention. There, flying around the top of the trunk, were phantoms.

Looking back down, and calmly, the god called out his name.

"George?"

Startled out of his skin, the mortal screamed, slamming his back further into the tree trunk as he raised his head. Tears streamed down crimson cheeks, blood and ash caked onto the skin of his forehead. The diety doesn't think he's ever seen a human like this— scared— timid, like a wild animal.

Above them, the phantoms soar down closer to the ground. Phantoms— workers for the ender dragon.

The human version of himself should be here, protecting the mortal from them and their nightmares, but looking around, it's just George, sitting alone in the woods by himself trembling.

For the first time ever, DreamXD thinks he could kill without remorse.