"And this is Shroud!" Tommy says with a bright smile as he opens the door to a big room with one huge spiderweb in the middle. However, no spider could be found. Tommy turns on a light and you quickly find the human-sized spider hiding behind the web. When the spider hears its name, it crawls out of its hiding place, towards Tommy. Tommy cheers a little and you laugh at his reaction, as he squats down and pets his pet.
"Didn't know spiders could be this big," you chuckle, surprised by how tame the animal was. "Did you experiment on it or find it this way?"
"I'm pretty sure it accidentally got mutated because of my carelessness," Tommy confirms as he stands up right. "He was at a place where he shouldn't have been and BOOM he started growing like crazy."
"He's quite adorable. Any reason you don't let him out?"
"He tends to eat people. Or other animals. Wilbur didn't like him very much, so I decided to give him his own little room! He can always come to my bedroom if he wants to, but he prefers to stay here and do art." You have no idea what Tommy means with 'art', but honestly, you're not going to ask either. "Oh! And last but not least," he closes the door to Shroud's room and brings you to another, more to the centre of the building, "here's my favourite room in the building!" Once he opens the door, your heart stops beating. Holy fucking shit. It's almost as if this simple door leads to a whole other world. There are some hills and flowers and grass and a beautiful blue sky, in which clouds are forming all kinds of figures. In the distance, you see a fascinating oak tree standing on a higher hill. Tommy starts shouting his pig's name as you simply walk towards the tree, already curious what is so special about it. When Tommy recognizes your curiosity, he laughs. "Here we have the L'Mantree!"
"What the fuck?" is your first response and Tommy's smile grows even more.
"I know right! L'Mantree will always be a place of peace for me." When you don't respond, he continues. "What used to be my home, was destroyed in an explosion. We used to have a tree exactly like this one growing in our backyard. So, I guess when I saw this, I just wanted it to stay this way. Wilbur wanted to cut it down as well, but I convinced him and told him that we should just make this place into some kind of a simulation, if that makes sense. I mean, we can control the weather in here!"
"Really impressive, Toms," you compliment with a chuckle. "So, I suppose that you're in charge of any experiments here as well?"
"I don't do any experiments here, but yeah, I suppose I am." He doesn't look happy saying those words.
"Are you okay, Toms?"
"I don't know." He stares up at the L'Mantree and lets out a sigh, before walking towards it and sitting down. "I don't know." You sit down next to him and quickly hear the sounds of a pig approaching you. The pig gets in Tommy's face and smells him, causing Tommy to laugh a little. You watch silently, smiling faintly to yourself.
"You don't want this, do you?" The one question startles him, yet he doesn't seem to protest against talking about it.
"I like science. I like discovering things. I like researching things. But no, I don't want this. I don't know what that 'this' is, but I know that I don't want it. I don't know. I guess I just follow Wilbur around since he seems to have everything under control and he knows what the fuck to do with his life, but I'm just not sure what I'm doing here. I'm a child. Have always been. Yet, I've just been working and doing stuff that I don't feel like I should be doing at any age. Have you ever had to dissect a corpse, Y/N? Because I've done that multiple times, ever since I was, what, fourteen?" Tommy makes himself a bit smaller and Wiggles lies down next to him. "I just wish that Tubbo and I could be children, you know? I mean, I'm seventeen now. I'm almost an adult. But I don't feel like I've ever been a child. Tubbo and I both deserve a normal childhood, do we not?"
You listen to his words and let out a sigh. You've had a childhood. You've been able to have fun. Sure, you've always struggled with life, but it's never taken away something as precious as that.
"Usually, Tubbo and I come here to play board games or tag or hide and seek, even if it's pretty hard with the leg of place to hide in. But here we can be free. On the roof, we have a bench with a juke box, where we sometimes sit too and just relax. That and this location are the only places where we can be, you know, children. I just wish people would understand what we're going through."
"Although I don't understand or know what you're going through, I understand that it must be hard," you tell him, as you put your hand on his back with a smile. "You know what? I'm going to see if I can organize something for the two of you. I'll have to get some help for it, but I'll keep you up-to-date with it." You'd have to give Tommy and Tubbo what they've never been able to have, and Sam was going to help you. Maybe Quackity too. You know that Sam likes the fellow, and you're sure that Quackity will learn to love him as well.
"Organize? What, are you going to hold some kind of a birthday party?"
"It's not your birthday, is it?"
"No."
"Well then. It's going to be like a non-birthday party. Or a childhood celebration day? I don't know, but I'm going to make sure that it's going to be the best day ever! We're going to play board games and watch some old animatic movies and eat some simple chips with a snack! What do you think?"
Tommy remains silent, looking at one of the dandelions in the grass. That's when he nods. "Yeah, I mean, I don't see why not." You smile brightly and throw your arm around his shoulder.
"Amazing! I'll make sure that you have the time of your life!" He simply laughs and nods, wiping away some tears in his eyes. When he sees that you notice them, he stands up and turns away.
"I, um, I think I need some time alone."
"What is it, Tommy?"
"I don't know," he stutters. "It's just that Wilbur's never done something like this for me." He refuses to show you the tears, but you know he's crying. Poor kid.
"What about your parents?" you ask caringly, looking away from him. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, by the way."
"I was adopted by my parents, but my mother already killed herself when I was like five, maybe six years old. After that, Dad just stopped caring. I haven't seen him or my other brother since I was eight." You fall quiet. Shit.
"I'm sorry to hear that." That's all you can say. You wish you could say more, but this is all that you can bring out.
"It's okay. I mean, I'm still alive, right?" You nod and sigh.
"You'll talk to me when you need to, right?" Tommy simply nods, but still avoids eye contact. You assume that he's wiping away his tears as he stands up. When he looks at you with a smile, he gestures towards the door.
"I have one last thing that is amazing that we should do!" he cheers, almost acting as if the previous subject of conversation has never been talked about whatsoever. "Come with me!" Wiggles protests when Tommy walks away and instead comes towards you to lie on your lap, so when you don't follow Tommy, he looks around confusedly simply for his heart to melt.
After you finally manage to leave the pig at the L'Mantree and leave the place behind, going up in the elevator and entering another room, which has multiple doors in it. "You see this? This is another room that I absolutely love! Maybe it's because the other rooms are yet again simulations, but this time, they're personally generated!" Tommy excitedly grabs your wrist and drags you in one of the rooms, gesturing you to sit down on the hospital-like bed. You feel a bit of anxiety creeping up on you, but you decide to suppress it. You trust Tommy after all, right?
After you lie down, Tommy puts some wires on your head, which is lying in a metal holder for it that is covered with some fabric, and you start naming the things you can see around you to prevent yourself from getting too sick. "So, I won't explain too much, but basically, with this, you can live your perfect life. You'll get to sleep and simply will have to count until ten and you'll fall asleep and fall in a state of sleep. Basically, you'll start lucid dreaming after this. But at the same time, you won't. It's complicated. The thing that causes you to fall asleep and lucid dream, has both to do with the vibrations to your head and the gas that will start coming into the room once I leave and turn on the machine. The gas has several ingredients in it, under which nitrous oxide, which can also be found in the gas used for anaesthesia. Of course, the gases have some risks to them, but we've made sure that it's nothing to be worried about!" You nod. Hopefully, he's right.
Tommy points at one of the screens. "In this, people around will be able to follow what you see. There is another monitor that watches your brain activity and other physical activity, such as your heart rate. When there are odd things happening, there is a chance that you'll get waken up quickly, but don't be startled if that's the case. Most of the time, those problems have everything to do with what happened during the dream, rather than the gases. So, I wouldn't be too concerned about it! And if you wake up earlier because of a problem such as that, I'll be in the room to your left, so feel free to wake me up." Tommy explains to you how to turn it on and you do so hesitantly after he leaves the room. You have to admit that you're really curious what his 'perfect life' is, but you decide not to invade his privacy. He'll tell you when he tells you.
So, you press on the correct button and close your eyes, slowly counting to ten. Even though you expect to stay awake for at least a minute, just like you usually stay awake for two hours after crawling in bed and attempting to find your way to the land of the Sandman, you quickly fall asleep, finding yourself in a seemingly different world.
When you open your eyes, you find yourself sitting on a pier with a fishing rod next to you. A beautiful lake with clear, clean water is resting in front of you, a part of it hiding behind a gushing waterfall. Moss is growing on the rocks and the grass contains some tulips. Some angelic trees are surrounding you everywhere and the sky is such a nice tint of blue with quite some clouds hanging above.
So, this would have been your perfect life, huh?
As you stand up from where you're sitting, you walk towards the land and leave the magical-looking lake behind, finding a nice path towards a place that you do not know of yet. You follow it. While you walk through the paradise of nature, you can't help but wonder if a place like this can actually be found somewhere. You've only known the city, after all. And the deserts surrounding it. Yet, you've never thought of trying to discover the place, have you?
Eventually, you discover that the path leads you towards a small cabin on a dike. You walk the small stairs towards it. It looks quite peaceful. There are even more tulips here and some animals are standing in the wooded areas, near the petite stream that leads towards the sea. There's a little beach, which is only as big as a house, standing between the two cliffs. As you approach the water, you quickly enough catch a glimpse of the white stone in the cliff that's facing the ocean. Such a peaceful place.
When you walk to the adorable cabin, you open the door and feel... weird. You'd think that in this simulation of your so-called perfect life, you'd at least feel happy. Yet, you don't. Especially not when you meet someone there. No, not just someone.
Sally.
"Y/N!" she cheers right away, before running towards you and pulling you into an embrace. "God, am I glad that you are back! I already feared that I'd have to prepare something else." She scans you. "Did you even catch anything? Where's the bucket? You can't tell me to prepare a meal with fish for you when you can't bring me the ingredients!" And while she's scolding you, you're just standing there frozen.
"Sally," you breathe, the name not having used for this woman in such a long time. "You're here too?"
"But of course I am, silly," she laughs, "we've been friends for how long? Why? Do you think I don't deserve a place in this perfect life?"
"You're sentient?"
"I am, yeah," she nods as she crosses her arms and sighs. "I guess you didn't expect me, huh? After what happened?" A silence falls between you and you can feel your heart quickening again. Shit. Get yourself under control. What is it that you see in the room? Right, a painting of a Starry Night and another panting of the Potato Eaters. And then there are the cacti in front of the window. Oh! And you got the couch as well, along with a TV... "You know, Techno is coming tonight. I don't think he'd like to see you like this, Y/N. And Quackity is too. He said he'd take his husbands with him, but that would mean that we'd have to sit outside somewhere, since the table isn't big enough for them."
"Are they sentient? Do they know?" God, you're freaking out for real now.
"Calm down, Y/N. They're not and they don't. I'm the only one."
"Why?"
"Because I'm dead." She says that with a simple shrug, as if it's the most normal thing in the world. Feelings of guilt overflow you as you frantically shake your head and start walking back.
"No, you're not just dead. You got killed because of my doing!" you protest, not wanting her to react the way she does. Has she forgiven you? Why? "Why aren't you angry, Sally? You should be furious! You should be punching the tables and be trying to kill me, not just accept me in!"
"Y/N, you're having an anxiety attack. Please, sit down and breathe, okay? Do what you have to do?" You don't even dare to disobey with her strict stare. Instead, you do as she says and sit down on the couch, breathing deep in and out. Meanwhile, Sally grabs her guitar and sits down next to you.
"En dan zitten we hier in het oude strandhuis. Wat je vertelt houdt me nuchter en warm. Come on, Y/N, sing with me. Boven m'n hoofd zie ik de grijze wolken. Ik ben blij dat je hier bent, blij dat je hier bent."
Although you recognize the melody, you don't recognize the words. Maybe Sally does, but you don't. However, to make her happy, you attempt (and fail miserably) to sing the correct words with her.
"Wij zitten hier in het gammele strandhuis. Maakte me toch al nooit uit waar we waren. We verzuipen onszelf in de drank van je vader. Ik ben blij dat je hier bent, blij dat je hier bent."
She continues to play the guitar and say the last few words of the song, before looking at you with those caring eyes. "Are you feeling better?"
"You really had to choose the song to which I can't pronounce the words properly?" you chuckle and she laughs, jokingly giving you the elbow.
"Come on, it's a nice song with a nice melody." You chuckle as well, but can't shake those emotions of misery off of you. You want to cry, yet your eyes are as dry as the deserts in your city. Sally notices. "I know you don't belong here, Y/N. I know you feel out of place. Even if this is the life that you would've wanted, it is a life that you in no way would have been able to get, and that is the most depressing realization that one can get to." Sally stands up and puts the guitar away again, on the place where it belonged. When she sits down next to you, she looks at you with a smile. "You know, I've seen everybody's paradise at this point. And every time, they treat it as if it's a reality. Even if they know that it isn't, they'd prefer to believe what they want to believe, instead of following the facts. They're so happy and so carefree, that they keep forgetting that it's a mere illusion of the mind. As you already know, the mind is capable of many things and it can come up with the strangest ideas. But to be honest, yours wasn't even that weird."
"What do you mean with that? I mean, with the 'I've seen everybody's paradise at this point'?"
"Who do you think created all of this, Y/N? It wasn't Tommy's idea." You fall quiet. Hold up, does this Sally know what real Sally also knew? You thought that this was something your mind created, so how is the Sally in your brain able to know things that you don't?
"How do you know?"
Sally giggles. "Come on, it's me. I know what I know." Again, you remain silent. You're waiting for an explanation, but she never gives one. Instead, she stands up once more and smiles at you. "This is an amazing desired reality, Y/N, and I wish that it was as true for you as it was for me, but you can't stay here. This is not healthy for you to do. My creation hasn't been tested on people yet with your problems. It's actually only made for the people working at DeMeter, since it hasn't affected any of them negatively yet mentally. But I'm worried that it might not have such a great effect on you."
"Sally," you start, but she interrupts you.
"Leave, Y/N. This isn't real, none of this is." The cabin slowly starts getting filled with a low-hanging smoke, and you feel as if you're losing control over your breathing. "We both know what happened. The experiment." Carpet. TV. Couch. Painting. Painting. Photo. Lamp. "I know that you'll never forgive yourself for what you've done, but know that I have. It was not your fault." Your vision darkens and her voice gets more and more distant, it seems. Your legs get all weak and you fall to the ground in an attempt to prevent yourself from hitting your head against the table. However, you're already out before you even get the chance of feeling the soft carpet and hearing the sweet voice of the deceased woman.
When you wake up, you can hear the fast beating of a heart monitor. Instinctively and panicked, you sit up straight and grab the wires to just pull them off of you. You can hear soft 'plops', announcing that the plastic that has been in touch with your skin welcomes the air, and the heart monitor stops at all as soon as it doesn't detect any touch anymore. The screen that should've been showing your desired reality is showing static and the other monitor next to it shows the brain activity. A paper on the table shows what the activity should be – both during the dream and after the awakening. As you analyse what your brain was before you pulled all the wires off, you realize that there was very little activity in your frontal lobe, while the part in the middle, which, according to the paper, is called the thalamus, is a lot more active.
Other than that and your increased heartrate, you suppose that nothing too bad happened during your sleep. Or at least, nothing that you can't explain and nothing that you understand or find interesting enough to actually read. Yet, you're still uneasy. You glance over to the chair where you just lay, thinking about the words of Sally.
Maybe it's time to wake up Tommy now.
Dream watches through the cameras of the simulation room how you go to Tommy's room to wake him up as well. What just happened? The entire time that you were asleep, he'd just been watching, and he'd never seen reaction such as yours. From what he's seen, it's not normal for people to actually experience the dream in real life. But he'd heard you. And he's seen the faces you made. Some showing comfort and some showing panic. And then the things you mumbled. Now, he couldn't make out any of it, it was all too quiet for that, but the sentences that he did manage to make out, are simply incoherent.
Now, while you seemed to be having nightmares, he had, of course, been thinking about waking you up. But he knew that as soon as you realized it was him, he'd been even more fucked than he already was.
So, while you are busy in the other room, he gets into the system of the monitors that kept checking on you through the whole experience to see what all of that was about. He goes over the scans made of your brain activity and the way that your heartrate quickened or slowed at certain moments, but none of that was as interesting as what could possibly have caused this reaction. So, as he rewatches the footage of your dream, he does so with attention.
He memorizes the detail of the lake and the fishing rod. He makes sure to remember the path that you took towards the small adorable cabin. But as soon as the door opens, he sees nothing but static. The sound of it is loud, but he can easily make out some other sounds in the background. High-pitched sounds... Morse code.
- . . - - - - . - - - - - . . - - . - - . - - - . - - - . . . .
- - . . - . . - . . . - . . . - . - - . - - . . . - - . .