False drove the two of them back to Cogsmeade. Since she still hadn't gotten Jimena another elytra yet, when they decided to go to Tumble Town, they had to use False's pickup truck. False made it herself; mostly out of dark oak wood, with the hood, doors, and fenders made of copper, and the inside of the car and the seats were lined with leather. Making machinery out of wood was a fun challenge for her, and she felt like she might try it again sometime.
"That was fun," Jimena chirped, sitting in the backseat. False didn't turn to look at her, trying to concentrate on the road, or lack of. The problem was that the emperors didn't really focus on building outside of their own empire, so they usually only paved roads between their kingdoms and their allies'. False made a mental note to make a road between Cogsmeade and Tumble Town, now that they had formed an alliance with each other. "Yeah, fun for you because you won." "Are you a sore loser, False?" Jimena asked. "No," False grumbled, be she realized that she wounded whiny. "Sorry, maybe I'm cranky because it's getting late. We'd better sleep as soon as we get back home."
False was a lot more tired than she thought, even though she'd been trying to sleep as much as possible, even during the day. Then again, every time she slept, she would get nightmares, which couldn't possibly help her sleep problems at all. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she fell fast asleep. And she was assaulted by dreams again. Flashes of memory, just like she had every other night. But the glimpses of her lost life were different this time. Instead of scenes involving False flying in the sky, or building things, she saw flashes of fire. Fire, engulfing a town of screaming villagers. Fire, setting the forest ablaze. Fire, lighting up the night sky like the rising sun, illuminating her silhouette on the horizon. False saw her plain as day now.
False came to a start, sitting up in her bed. She remembered more now. She remembered more of what the flashbacks had been trying to tell her. She remembered the her acts of arson. How could I have done things like that? What kind of person was I before? False, shuddering, looked at her hands. Why was there a cut on her left palm? It was fresh. And she was certain that she didn't have it when she'd gone to bed. Maybe I cut myself on the UNO cards and didn't notice. Playing cards can give you papercuts, right? But False had a bad feeling that the red line on her hand was something far more serious.
She looked at her feet and noticed that she was wearing her shoes. Why did I wear them to bed? False, shivering, but not from the cold, got up and put her boots away. She tried to go back to sleep, but her fear kept her awake. False decided to take a walk, even if it was the middle of the night. Half of her screamed that it was too dangerous, walking around alone at night, but the other half of her desired something to do. She listened to the latter, putting her shoes back on and stepping outside. The moon splashed the obsidian-toned world with slivers of silver; where most people found hope in the lights in the darkness, False felt that they made the dark seem darker by comparison and more frightening. She moved closer to the houses, where she found comfort in the familiar. It was near the houses that she found the body.
False gasped. There was a palomino horse, just lying on her side in the middle of the street, not even dead yet. Eyes half open and glazed over. Blood spilled from multiple slashes all over her body and pooled on the ground; a gruesome, sticky puddle, staining her white coat a dirty brown. Who could do this to a horse?! False crouched down and stroked the poor thing; the mare whinnied and shied away from her, trying to kick the architect even though it was down. False backed away. Do healing potions work on horses? She ran into her house to get the potions she'd bought from Shelby. She came back out and poured them all on the palomino.
After a few fearful, painstaking minutes, the horse got up and ran away from her. False, shuddering at the experience, turned to go back into her house, and saw Pumpkin Jack staring straight into her eyes, like he was disappointed in her. His hand rested on a sign with words written on it in glow squid ink, making it possible for False to read what it said even in the dim light of the full moon. "Beware your hands," False whispered, her lonely voice quavering in the still, silent night. She ran away from the sign, from Pumpkin Jack, from the puddles of blood where the horse had lain; away to her house and to her soft bed, where she could fall asleep again and escape this nightmare turned reality.
Was it real? Was the first thing False thought when she awoke again at noon the next day. In the harsh daylight, it was hard to imagine such a thing could have ever happened. But the event left a deep impression in False's mind; she had to be sure. She got out of bed, finding out that she'd gone to sleep with her boots on again, and walked to where she thought the horse had been. There were no puddles of blood on the ground, everything was normal. But instead of calming her down, it frightened her. The fact that someone might have cleaned the blood up meant that other horrifying things could have happened in Cogsmeade, right under her nose, and she'd never noticed.
False needed an escape. So she activated her elytra and flew away from her empire, trying to think of something that would distract her. She remembered her thoughts about trying the challenge of building machinery out of wood again. To do that, she would need more wood. So she flew to Sanctuary. Sausage was called Wood Daddy, because he had the export of wood. And even if they weren't officially allies yet, they were on friendly terms with each other, so False was fairly certain that he would let her trade.
False landed in a yard surrounding a colorful warehouse of wood. Around the yard were piles of logs and chests and barrels and signs and planks, all separated and sorted depending on what kind of wood they were made of. Acacia, birch, oak, cherry. False liked acacia wood. When stripped, it was a vivid orange color that matched her copper aesthetic, so she headed to the acacia pile. As she got close, she was startled by the sight of a little boy hopping out from behind it. He looked at her sweetly. He had messy tousled electric-yellow hair, a blue shirt covered by a buttoned violet vest, and shoes with wings attached to the sides. He waved at False, who waved back uncertainly. "Uh, hello there. What are you doing here? Where's your parents?" The boy pointed behind her, and False turned to see a zombie stretching a rotten limb toward her.
His skin was a sickly shade of green and decaying, and one eye was an empty socket with a gross sticky pink goo spilling out of it. He wore silver and turquoise armor that was tattered and torn, and a shield with a familiar emblem clattered on his back. False knew the zombie. It was Sausage. "Im ammm yoggur worshhhe nightmare!" He growled, his voice guttural and almost incomprehensible. False didn't even think. Her hand darted to her sword hanging by her belt and she unsheathed it. She leapt toward Sausage, slashing her blade across his chest, and then his neck on the backswing, and then stabbed him straight through where his heart was, if zombies had hearts. Sausage gasped and stared at her before he fell limp and his body vanished, leaving nothing behind but a pile of items.
False was confused. The lack of a dead body and the pile of items meant that Sausage had died and respawned. Aren't zombies already dead...? Then she looked up at the sun, blazing merrily down on where she was standing. Zombies weren't supposed to survive in the sun either. And then she fully comprehended what she had just done. Did I just... She looked at her bloodied sword. She'd never used it like that before. In fact, she barely used a weapon at all, except when she got attacked by mobs. And then now, all of a sudden, she'd become a brutal killer. False was very unnerved by the fact that she had never known that about herself.
Just then, Sausage ran out of the warehouse, screaming, "It was just a joke! A prank! I wasn't going to eat your brains!" False stepped back, feeling awkward. "Uh, Sausage? What happened?" "Shelby fed me a golden apple after splashing me with a weakness potion to help with my bad dreams, and then I turned like this. I'm a weird zombie; I don't burn in daylight, and apparently I can die again." Sausage rambled. "Oh. I'm sorry about killing you." "Oh, I don't mind. I'm technically already dead."
Then False realized what Sausage had said. "Wait, you have bad dreams too?" "Yeah!" Sausage exclaimed. "My nightmares make me remember things I don't remember happening, and then a bunch of times they take me to another dimension!" False stared. Another dimension. Like where I come from. "Wait, so you transport to other dimensions when you dream?" She asked. "Well, I guess so, unless they're really just weird dreams." Something like hope was stirring in the back of False's mind. "Sausage, you know how I'm from another dimension and I want to get back? Do you think you could... help me get back there?" Sausage hesitated, and False felt that she had gotten her hopes up only for them to come crashing back down, and hurting even more from the fall damage.
"Well, I can't control it yet," Sausage said guardedly. "But if I ever figure out how to use it for good, I'll help send you back, okay?" False smiled. "Thanks, Sausage." "By the way, did you say you also have bad dreams?" Sausage asked. False paused. "Well, yeah. But I don't want to talk about it." Sausage nodded. "Okay, I get it. But if you ever feel like telling me, I'm going to the rift festival next week, so you can talk to me about it then!" "Wait, what rift festival?" False blinked. She knew about the rift; it was a strange purple hole in the cliffside near spawn. It looked so much like a portal that she heard some emperors sent a few things through, but nothing had ever come back yet. False had avoided it so far; the thought of a black hole-esque rift sucking up people that were never found again was nightmarishly frightening. But a rift festival?
"Oh, Oli decided to host a festival by spawn and name it after the rift," Sausage said casually. "He's going to do a singing performance by the rift too! And he's asked all the emperors to set up stalls and shops to make it exciting. I'm building a fighting pit so people have an excuse to kill each other! What do you want to do?" False didn't feel like a fighting pit was appropriate for a festival, but she didn't say so. "Uh, maybe I'll do a stall to sell iron, or something. I've also got some spare trinkets that I have no idea what to do with; I don't decorate that much; maybe I'll sell them." She said. "Oh, that'll be nice! If you end up selling the trinkets, I'll go buy them," Sausage said excitedly. Then he glanced at something behind False and blanched. "Hermes, get down from there this instant!"
False turned around to see that the yellow-haired boy had somehow managed to climb up on top of the roof of the warehouse, and was now chasing a bird up there. "Hermes, stay still! Daddy's coming!" Sausage yelped, activating his elytra and flying up to the roof. Hermes giggled and False had no idea what to think of Sausage having a son while she wasn't looking. After Sausage got Hermes down, False bartered with him over acacia wood. She hadn't brought any iron with her, just a purse full of diamonds, so she paid two diamonds for a stack of logs. "Pleasure to do business with you!" Sausage said. "Now, come on, Hermes, let's go scare Aunt Lizzie next!"