Happily Never After ʚ DNF ɞ

ʚ Chapter 1 ɞ

"Glad you could finally make it, Clay." A distorted voice, vaguely resembling his own, speaks up.

Dream winces at the sound of claws scraping against his metal-adorned armor, slowly releasing his arms and allowing him to turn and face the reason for his delay.

"Who-?" He breathly questions before coming to fully face the figure. Dream's eyes widen at the sight of a 'man' abnormally towering over him, the top half of his face covered by a circular white mask holding the letters of 'XD' in charcoal black. A large smile is present on the individual's face, right below where the mask covers.

"Don't tell me you don't recognize me," the figure swoops around him in an unnatural way, a large shadow looming over him. Dream narrows his eyes in his direction. He's wearing a forest green cloak in which its hood covers his head, the rest of it draping off his shoulders and almost reaching the ground. Near his neckline, it connects together with a jewel that almost seemingly resembles a green eye, and it's accessorized with light gold chains that hang over his shoulders. The rest of his clothes are covered away by the cloak, just dark black armor peeking through the opening as well as tall black boots that cover just below his knees.

"I'm not an idiot, and your mask is a huge giveaway." Dream crosses his arms.

"Oh come on, Clay~" XD's smile widens as his head tilts a bit to the side, "You don't have to ruin the fun!"

"Don't call me that." Dream spits out.

"Why not? It's your name, is it not?" XD places a hand on his shoulder and Dream immediately swipes it off.

"You're not my friend and I don't care what you're doing here, I'm just grabbing George and getting out of here." He turns back towards the tower, immediately starting towards it. The figure snickers from behind him.

"Even if you get George out of there, you still have to complete the story." Dream stops in his tracks.

"What do you mean, complete the story?" He turns to face XD, who was suddenly directly behind him.

"Ah, now you're interested." The figure smirks.

"Explain." Dream commands impatiently.

"I'm surprised you haven't further questioned this sooner, but right now, as you already know, you're in the story of Rapunzel. In order to get out of it, you have to rescue 'Rapunzel' from the tower and complete the story by giving them their happily ever after. And what better person to play the role of Rapunzel than the love of your life!" Dream pauses for a moment, contemplating his next words.

"What's the catch?" He keeps his eyes trained on XD, whose smile still remains present.

"No catch, just finish the story."

"And then we can get out of here?"

"And then you can get out of here," XD confirms.

Dream takes a deep breath and turns back towards the tower.

"Just one more thing," XD's voice is placed directly next to his right ear.

"Don't let George find out about me." Dream feels the exhale of breath crawl on his skin,  "And if you do, the consequences won't be pretty." There's a light blow of wind and he turns to find the suddenly missing presence of XD.

"Fantastic!" He exclaims sarcastically, "Just what I didn't need!"

Dream huffs out an exhale of breath before facing the tower once again, scanning for the best possible way of approach.

~ ‧₊˚ ʚ♡ɞ ˚₊‧ ~

Flashback

"DREAM!" George's voice screeched loudly through his headphones, Patches immediately jumping off Dream's lap from the sound.