Ｏｕｔｌｏｏｋ

Stone

~Geno Sans

When I told Ink about what happened to Dream, he immediately teleported out, telling me he would be back with what we needed later. Error huffed and said that we didn't need to go around helping people, but he would do it anyway because why the fuck not.

Soon Ink teleported back with these tether-like things, and told us to grab hold of one end. I did it, but Error was reluctant, asking Ink if this was some sort of trap. Ink laughed it off and told him it wasn't. So he hesitantly took hold of the other end and we teleported.

We were inside the palace thing, and there were his nightmare papyruses patrolling everywhere. Ink hid behind a corner. They weren't really patrolling, more like talking and pretending to patrol whenever Nightmare came along. I knew this because Nightmare came by dragging along Fresh with him, Dust Sans spiked on one of his tentacles, obviously showing Fresh around, quite aggressively. How nightmare was back in his original body, I couldn't tell you. Once again, we were out of Nightmares eyeshot.

Fresh saw us and his glasses flashed, "Wot da hecks?". Ink was worried and Error wanted to kill him, but I held Error back and signaled to them that it was alright, and gave a thumbs up to Fresh and pointed to Nightmare and us, and shook my hands as if to say "don't tell", and I made some other signal that meant otherwise he would get killed by doing the whole pretending to slit your throat with your finger, and gave the thumbs up and "ok" sign to him. He just looked back and started talking to Nightmare again, not telling us of our location.

Ink was relieved, and once Fresh and Nightmare turned the corner Ink ran down the hall and turned a couple of corners and came to what looked like a garden. All the plants were dead, or just dust. Black shriveled up nothings. In ruins, this whole palace was. Just the way Nightmare liked it, probably.

Right smack Dab in the middle of it, on a pedestal, was Dream, cast in stone, again. Ink was about to un-stone Dream when Nightmare came back with Fresh, without Dust. Ink painted a background for us to hide behind real quick and grabbed us and jumped behind it. I almost choked on my scarf.

Nightmare was admiring his work, telling Fresh about how stupid Dream was. As I said, he likes it when it's HIS idea to brag about himself. He then went onto say how he didn't get why Dream protected AUs, they didn't even value what he did, he didn't get anything in return, so why do it. Fresh just listened as Nightmare said that from one of the last fights they had, Dream had said that it was because everyone deserves to have dreams, hopes, and be happy.

He then started laughing. When he stopped he said that it was "The most dumb, idiotic, banal, trite, hackneyed, commonplace, clichéd, hoary, stereotyped, platitudinous thing I've ever heard." He then took Fresh away, and when Ink was busy with Dream I followed Nightmare and Fresh, listening in on their conversations.

Nightmare was talking about how he does things is like building with blocks, how when Dream builds up and AU with confidence and love and hopes, how he strips it of that love and knocks it over, filling in a void of fear and hatred and pessimism.

He then sent Fresh away, giving him a Sans soul, and headed back towards the garden. I bolted to Ink and told him this, and Ink had gotten Dream free, for now, so he grabbed Dream and me and Error held onto the tethers and we teleported back.