End Of Days

38: Silence

It had been almost a week since the campsite had been burnt to the ground.

Tommy stared at the crack of light leaking in between haphazardly placed planks of wood, eyes glazing over. Boredom was annoying at the best of times, but it was heavier with the weight of the loss of the community he had come to love.

"You're gonna burn your retinas." Tubbo said with a heavy sigh, pulling the book away from his face to raise an unimpressed eyebrow at Tommy.

"Sorry." Tommy murmured, blinking and shifting his focus to the floor. "Just bored, y'know?"

"Boredom is a luxury." Dream said from the other side of their tiny shelter, Michael nestled in his arms. He had been crying all day, but finally seemed to have tired himself out. The lack of noise was a nice change.

"Still boring." Tommy concluded unenthusiastically.

The three teenagers had spent the last six days taking refuge inside of the handmade shelter that they had been allocated. It was safe and there were blankets and chairs, even a mattress. This was a luxury, and Tommy knew he should be grateful for it, but it wasn't home.

Home was a tent or a dorm room or a bedroom in the suburbs. Home was community and people and love.

Tommy rolled onto his side, curling in on himself and holding his arms around his knees. He allowed his eyes to drift shut and wished for memories of better times. Everything that followed was tinged with an unshakeable sadness.

He wondered how this feeling would stay with him.

—

Hitting the water fucking hurt.

His chest was on fire, burning from the lack of oxygen as he plummeted beneath the waves, his skin stinging from the slap of altitude mixed with ocean as he made contact. The ocean was a beautiful thing, but as Wilbur clawed his way to the surface he just wished it was a little less deep.

The salt was in his throat and his lungs, and he choked on nothing as the surface came closer and closer, and his hands stung as he clawed through the water, and his eyes were burning, and his–

He broke through the surface with a gasp that quickly turned to a cough before dissolving unceremoniously into a fit of choking and spluttering, and all he could do was try his very best to keep his head above the water as the waves gently guided him towards the shore.

It took a moment but his lungs slowly expanded, filling with oxygen and Wilbur let out a slow breath as he got his bearings, holding his hands up in front of his face. He let out a short huff of amusement when he found everything where it should be, because honestly he hadn't been expecting to pull this off.

And then he cast his eyes up to the endless stretch of rock and cliff, and he saw what he had done.

An uncontrollable shout built in his throat and suddenly Wilbur was smiling, grinning from ear to ear as he let it free. "Yeah!" He screamed, uncaring for who heard or what happened next because Morbus Lurcum was in flames.

They did it. They won.

He let out another shout that dissolved into a relieved, exhausted laugh, throwing his arms in the air before he could stop himself. His head dipped below the surface but he didn't care, shaking the hair from his eyes before pulling himself towards the shoreline.

Swimming was exhausting but it didn't truly hit him until his feet were on the sand once more. The ocean lapped at his ankles as he made it back onto land, water dripping from his sleeves, his nose, his hair. Wilbur smiled, looking up at what he'd done and feeling nothing but a raging satisfaction.