Clover Island (Hold)

going in

There was a very intense energy as dream stood with his bow, aiming at nightmare, who was stood on the other side of the clearing, still recovering from the last shot.

The two skeletons were fighting in the snowdin forest of an au nightmare had raided. The air was thick and the snow was stained in blood, dust, and dirt.

"Why do you always have to get in my way...!" Nightmare growled out, while holding his arm that was slowly regenerating.

Dream stayed silent as he kept a determined look on his face, firing again. Nightmare dodged the arrow quickly and charged at dream, his tendrils spiking forward at the last second. Dream dodged and jumped to the side, firing arrows that all missed.

The fight continued on, both already exhausted, but neither gave in and retreated.

"Why do you keep doing this!?" Dream shouted at nightmare.

Nightmare grinned. "Because it satisfies me! Each person that dies makes me stronger! And then I'll finally be able to kill you.."

Dream glanced away nervously. He was disappointed in himself at what happened to his brother. He couldn't even bring himself to look nightmare in the eye.

He quickly looked back up, just to see nightmare running toward him, but before he could do anything, a portal opened infront of nightmare, causing him to flinch back, almost falling in.

Dream lowered his bow and slowly walked over.

"Stay the fuck back."
Nightmare said lowly, causing dream to freeze.

"What is it?"
Dream asked from his spot.

Nightmare looked up at dream but then quickly turned his attention back to the portal.
"You didn't put it here?"

Dream set the bow down all the way, knowing nightmare was to interested in the random portal than fighting him.

Dream sighed and watched as nightmare inspected the portal, slowly inching closer when nightmare wasn't staring him down. He ended up only a few feet away from nightmare without him noticing, staring at the portal as well.

It was a navy blue portal, spiraling around to look like water. The edges of the portal were yellow and grainy with spots of sand floating around. Dream didn't know what kind of entity this portal belonged to, but it seemed they wanted them to go through.

"Maybe we could tie something to a rope and throw it through?" Dream said.

Nightmare jumped back and quickly spun toward dream, readying his tendrils.

"I thought I told you to stay back.."
Nightmare glared.

Dream shrugged.
"Well you looked to interested in that portal to pay attention to me. I could of shot at you and you wouldn't even have noticed."

Nightmare set down his tendrils slowly but still kept his gaurd up.

"Okay... What did you say before..?"

Dream smiled slightly.
"We tie something to a rope and throw it through the portal! And then when we could pull it back through and see what kind of condition it's in."

Nightmares glare turned into a look of curiosity.
"Hmm. I'll be right back."
Nightmare then teleported away, leaving a puddle of black tar where he was standing.

Dream smiled. It was nice to be hanging out with his brother without it being a fight to the death. Soon nightmare quickly returned, holding a thick rope with drops of dried blood, and a stuffed animal.

Dream didn't really want to know what they used that rope for, but also questioned the stuffed animal.
"Do you just randomly keep stuffed animals around your base?"
Dream pointed to the stuffie that now had the long rope securily tied around it's waist.

"Error makes them when he's bored. He doesn't really know what to do with them so he just leaves them lying around- wait, why am I telling you this?"
Nightmare stopped what he was doing to squint at dream, who was trying not to laugh.

"...I never said anything."
Nightmare mumbled as he walked over to the portal. Whoever put it there seemed to be growing impatient, as there were now steady small winds beaconing them into the portal.

Nightmare tossed the animal into the portal and then let the rope run all the way in before pulling it back.

When the stuffed animal came back through the portal, there was a very noticable stench of sea water and fish. The stuffed animal was soaking, and had a few pieces of kelp stuck to it.

"...ew."
Nightmare dropped it onto the ground.

Dream thought for a moment.
"So either there's an ocean on the other side, or it just landed into a conveniently placed salt water aquarium.."

"Yeah, well whatever's over there, I'm not going through. I'm just going to leave and pretend none of this ever happened."
Nightmare turned to create a portal, but realized it didn't work. He tried again and nothing happened, and the portal was getting impatient.

"What happened?"
Dream asked.

"...nothing."
Nightmare turned to glare at dream.

"Are your portals not working? Let me try..."
Dream put his hand out to create a portal but nothing happened.

"Huh? Is nobody feeling any emotions right now?"
Dream set his hand back down.

They both stood there awkwardly for a few moments.

"Maybe we should just go through the portal? It really wants us to got through. It's gonna suck us in soon anyway."
Dream looked at nightmare who had his tendrils planted firmly into the ground.

"And what if it's a trap? Not everything wants to help and be friendly you know?"
Nightmare said.

Dream looked away. Either they could go through the portal now, or wait and be sucked in eventually. Problem is, there's just water on the other side.

Dream stared at the portal that was now sucking in clumps of snow, wondering what he should do.

"F*ck it."
Dream said and walked towards the portal. The winds got slightly stronger as dream walked toward it, wanting him to come closer.

"What are you doing? You do know you have a really high chance of dying as soon as you walk through, right?"

Dream just shrugged.
"Eh. Your gonna get sucked in aswell anyway. I'll see you soon."

Nightmare watched as dream stepped through, and suddenly felt his soul throb. He coughed and slightly lost his balance, feeling the wind blow him closer, he resisted, but felt the hurt in his soul clear up when he got closer. That meant dream wasn't dead. He was just somewhere far away...

Nightmare hesitated before stepping through the portal as well.

---

We're going to admit we did start writing this book a while ago but just started publishing chapters '>' wdk why we waited so long, but here we are lmao

Updated: 1/15/23

Words: 1118