TW: SWEARING, YELLING, VIOLENCE, PAIN, POISONING, HINTS OF MENTAL BREAKDOWNS, MANIPULATION
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My eyes shoot open and immediately shut when I feel rough fabric over my eyes pressing my eyelashes into my eyeballs. I gasp for air and try to sit up but my weight is immediately thrown back down. I swivel my head around frantically to no avail. I suck in the air greedily, it felt like I'd been drowned and I'd just come up for air.
I tried to move my hands but find that they're bound to the chair I'm strapped to. I try to move my body but find my shoulders are bound too. I thrash about in the chair as best I can but it does nothing. My ankles, legs, arms and my torso are strapped down. The chair is freezing and rock hard, I haven't been here for long. I try to feel the atmosphere of the room around me but it just feels cold, and empty.
I jump when skin brushes my cheek. I lean forward and let the hand wrap around my head and untie the blindfold coarsely. I'm instantly blinded by the light above my head and squint my eyes uncomfortably. The light stops me from being able to see the rest of the room, but I can see one thing.
Schlatt lurks in the shadows holding some black fabric in his hands. I feel my pulse increase and the voices shriek unruly as soon as my gaze focuses on his disgusting figure. My muscles tense making my fists clench tightly.
"Blast protection, truly one of the most important enchantments, as it seems as though it saved your life," Schlatt spoke darkly.
"What happened? How the fuck are you alive?" I demanded in my weak voice. My throat was tight from the restless sleep I had been in.
"Do you really not remember princess?"
"Don't call me that," I spat. Schlatt chuckled and disappeared and then reappeared without my cloak in his hands. His horns shone in the dimly lit room and that horrible pin on his tie seemed to glisten. The horrible mark of the army shining ominously.
"Do you remember the whithers? Technoblade's whithers?" immediately the voices spike and ram into the walls of my mind all at once. My skull feels like it's splitting in two and I groan in pain and my head rolls to the side involuntarily.
"Oh yes, the voices, I thought you would be used to them by now Y/N, they're about to get a lot louder," he chuckles maniacally and my eyes widen. Worse? How? How the fuck does he even know they exist?!
"How long have I been here?"
"You won't believe me if I told you, princess,"
~~~~ Dream's P.O.V ~~~~
The house has never been more lonely, it's also never been so full. After Y/N disappeared, it broke everyone. We all immediately banded together in an attempt to try and find her. We formed our own rebellion against what we'd discovered was the Dark Army. Schlatt's Army.
We worked together to stop the may from decimating villages and recruiting more soldiers from the ruins. So far we'd stopped two raids since Y/N disappeared, but it was difficult to track the soldiers. They were always two steps ahead.
We'd had to upgrade the house a little, there was now a new upstairs area above the kitchen. Tommy, Tubbo, Fundy and Niki stayed up there, four bedrooms and one bathroom, identical to our side of the house. We'd all come together for one reason, to find Y/N.
I ran my hands frustratedly through my hair and stared angrily at the reports in front of me. SMP duties, most of them had fallen to George who was now king but there was always something for me to do. I was the true heir after all.
This is such a waste of time, I should be trying to find the army. Trying to find Y/N, but I was stuck here in this office. A knock on the door disrupted my brooding. It was Sapnap.
"They're ready for you," I nod and put my mask on. Y/N always hated when I wore it.
I follow Sap down the lava-lined hall to the war room. We'd completely wrecked the place. Instead of weapons being set on the table, maps and sighting reports to do with the Dark Army covered it fully. The largest wall had a giant map that reached as far as it could. In the middle was the largest map we could find of the SMP and its surrounding towns. After that, we had to explore outwards. We'd extended it so much that to explore further we had to travel at least a day. In other directions, we could travel for nearly a week until we reached uncharted territory.
I immediately look to Niki who is bent over a corner of the table sketching on the piece of paper.
"Niki, have you finished the latest extension?" I ask her abruptly.
"Hello Dream, nice to see you too, gee, I'm doing well," Tommy says sarcastically from where he was looking at a map of the coastline on the wall. I hear Sapanap grumble something to him and put a hand on his shoulder, which Tommy shakes off.
"I'm nearly finished, here's the sketch," Niki held out a small piece of paper to me. I took it hungrily and marched to the back wall finding the spot where it would fit. I lined it up and stuck it to the wall with a dagger I had strapped to my belt. A few more miles and we'd reach the end of the wall. We'll continue onto the next if we have to.
Footsteps descending the stairs and the loud swing of the glass door opening makes everyone in the room turn and see Fundy and Quackity come stumbling in. Finally.
"Did you find anything?"
"Nothing," Quackity says out of breath and Fundy wearily walks over to Niki and hands her multiple sheets of paper with their notes and terrain sketches for another part of the map.
"Not even a town? Not a single road? A ruin? A person? Nothing?" I press.
"Dream we found literally nothing, we've said so many times that the plains out that way are empty," Fundy says and collapses on the floor next to Quackity's chair. A sudden rage fires through my body. I slam my fists onto the table making the whole room jump.
"If you found nothing then get the fuck back out there and goddamn find something!" I yell.
"Dream, that's enough!" George says. I didn't even know he was in the room.
"No, it's not enough! It's not enough until we find the army!" I shout again.
"Dream look around you! We're exhausted! We can't find anything if we can't focus on the ground in front of us. Quackity and Fundy have duties in L'Manburg to attend to and I have kingship duties. Pushing ourselves to the brink won't help bring her back," George reasons.
At the mention of her, I feel my face twist painfully behind the mask.
"Work on a new plan, do it with Tubbo in L'Manburg if you have to," I speak quietly and with menace to make sure they know I mean it and storm out.
I burst back into my office and slam the door behind me. I breathe heavily and feel my muscles tighten and relax with each breath. My eyes set their sights on the paperwork I had yet to do on my desk. I growl and sweep it all off my desk with one arm sending items clattering to the floor and papers fluttering about in the air.
Keep it together Dream.
~~~~ Y/N's P.O.V ~~~~
I cry out as I hit the floor and the impact sends my bones rattling and the voices reeling. I look up and see through my blurry vision the two guards who escorted me here close the door and lock me in. I sway and try to listen for their footsteps, they don't leave, they must be guarding me. Or the voices are too loud.
I let out an animalistic scream as another wave of pain wracks my body. I writhe on the cool floor trying to find some kind of relief. They injected me with a strange red liquid after torturing me and questioning me for hours. If I put a foot wrong Schlatt would tip my chair back and pour water onto my face. It was difficult to breathe, water went up to my nose, my mouth and into my eyes and ears. I'd come up spluttering for breath, I kept myself together as best I could. I was beaten, hit multiple times by Schlatt.
As I tried to grasp what happened, what they asked me, and why I was hit with a wave of pain made me regret thinking a single thought. The voices hadn't shut up and only seemed to get louder. I couldn't hear my own thoughts. Just distorted, incoherent screaming. Foul lamentings of death that seemed to prophesize more pain.
Another wave of pain hit and I gasped loudly and screamed hitting my palm repeatedly on the floor trying to distract myself. Sweat stuck my hair to my head and made my body both slipper and sticky. I looked up and saw two glass double doors. They lead out to a balcony.
Air. Fresh air. Cold winter air.
Desperate, I clawed my way across the floor. Every move felt like I was crawling into knives. My legs refused to work and I had to drag myself across by my arms. My vision swayed and the room was dark. All I could see was the silver light coming through the glass doors.
I drag my body up the glass doors and lean heavily on them. I fumble with the handle, my hand too shaky to move in a sustainable pattern. I moan and groan as another wave of pain hits me. It runs up my spine like acid burning everything on it'd way. I slam down on the handle with my elbow and it opens. The doors open outwards and I fall onto the cold tiles of the balcony.
I gasp and suck in the cool air like my life depends on it. I curl up into a ball and let the cool air wash over me drying my sweat and lowering my body temperature. Sweet relief. My hyperventilation slows to a normal pace but tears continue to drip down my face and all I can hear are the voices rattling their chains and rattling mine.
I force myself to sit up, I lean heavily on the banister of the balcony and force my legs to sit under me and support my weight. The instant I see my surroundings I shuffle forwards on shaky knees. I grip the pillars of the balcony railing tightly in my palms and stare slack-jawed at the scene in front of me.
Giant concrete towers reach for the skies, some with long spikes on top and grand architectural designs. All the buildings were desolate, dark, abandoned. Nearly all the glass windows were broken in. All of the buildings were covered in natural life. Vines and plants gripped the sides of these grey giants tightly and reached all the way to the top. A gust of wind alerts me to just how high up I am, I look down.
Below me, the ground looks like a tiny line no thicker than my pinky finger. The ground was also covered in cold grey concrete, and that concrete was covered in life. Nature had reclaimed this place from the humans that destroyed it. The ground was covered in a thick layer of grasses, but no trees. The grass seemed to stay away from the centre of the strip of ground that slithered like a snake between the jungle of concrete giants.
I could just make out the figured of wandering demons that had lost their way in the night in the grasses. Sick of watching the ground I looked to the skies where a giant silver moon greeted me. It filled me with calm as it rose higher into the sky.
I watch for a few minutes calming myself but letting the voices rage on. I didn't even get to say goodbye. I'm lost in this strange place, I have no idea where I am, I have no idea what this is. Do they even know I'm gone? How will they know I'm not there if I didn't say goodbye.
My broken and irrational thoughts rattle my emotions further and cause me to cry. In the midst of my tears, I remember something my father used to say.
The worst kinds of goodbyes are the ones left unsaid and unexplained.
~~~~
HELLO LOVELIES!!!!!!!!!!
WE'RE BACK BITCHES! WOO HOO!
Welcome to Forget Me Not and I'm your author Redfairylights. A pleasure to see you all again and even better to see all of the new readers <3
Similarly to Wilting Marigolds, chapters will start short until I find a proper direction for the rest of Y/N and Dream's journey and THEN you'll get those thick 5000-word chapters again ;)
THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR READING AND I HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY/MORNING/AFTERNOON/NIGHT ILY <3<3<3<3<3
here's your hydration reminder also EAT!