The Withering-Dreamnotfound {Sequel Out Now!}

Its a Sign

          After telling Bad about the flower, he begged the two to take him to it. He just had to see the withered rose in person. Bad looks out his windows and sees that it's raining. The other guys notice this as well. Bad and George both grab their jackets hanging from the wall by the door while Sapnap pulls a hoodie out of his backpack.
          George notices that Dream was just standing there in his thin shirt, not grabbing any sort of long sleeves. "Aren't you going to get a jacket on?"
          Dream smiles awkwardly. "I didn't bring one with me. I didn't realize it'd start raining today."
          Without another word, George ducks into his room and comes back out with a bow and a quiver in one hand and a lime green sweatshirt in the other. He hands the sweatshirt to Dream, then attaches the quiver to his belt.
          Dream looks from the hoodie in his hands, then back to George. "I can't take this! It's really well made. You could make a good amount of emeralds off of this."
          George smiles. "Just take it, Dream. It was supposed to be a different shade of green, but I mixed the dyes wrong. It was back before I got used to what items made what dyes."
"You 'got used' to it?" Dream asks.
"I'm colorblind," George explains. "I didn't quite know what I was doing when I made it. It's yours now though!"
          Dream pulls the hoodie over his head and notices the sweet smell coming off of it. He covers his nose with the sleeve and takes a deep breath, trying to place the smell, but he couldn't.
          Bad notices the weapon in George's hand and lets out a small giggle. "George, we are just going to see a flower. We don't need weapons," he says as they all walk out the door.
          George looks up towards the plateau, worried. "If this Wither thing is out there, we should all have weapons."
          Sapnap places his bag down and pulls a wooden sword out of his inventory. "Here, I'll carry a weapon too. No need to worry."
          "If we are relying on YOU to protect us," Dream starts to wheeze, "then we are all already dead." Sapnap elbows Dream in the stomach as he walks away.
          The villagers once again stare at Dream and Sapnap, watching them as they head towards the path that Sap had dug out the previous day. They began their journey into the forest, but as soon as they reached the dark oak forest, Sapnap stopped everyone.
          "Something's wrong," Sapnap says quietly.
          Dream scans the forest as he listens for any signs of something being off. "Seems fine to me," he says. "I don't hear anything."
          "But that's what's wrong, Dream," Sapnap says. "The birds should be out, but they're not."
          "The rain is probably drowning out their tweets," Dream figures. "They may just be nesting or something." Dream walks into the forest, Bad following close behind him. Sapnap continues to look at the forest, worriedly. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees George loading an arrow into his bow. He was the only other person that agreed with Sapnap. Something is off.
          Sapnap jogs ahead of Dream to lead the way through the forest before they get lost. Bad looked around at his surroundings, taking in the foliage. The trees above them were thick enough to stop rain from coming through too hard. There would be the occasional spot where rain would make it through the trees, but the group stayed relatively dry. Though he didn't really need it, Dream was still thankful that George gave him the hoodie. It kept him warm while the wind whistled through the branches.
          After some time of walking, Sapnap calmed down a little bit, but George was still on edge. "Have any of you guys noticed any animals since we've been out here?" George asks.
          Dream shrugs. "I don't know. I haven't been paying attention." Bad and Sapnap both mumble in agreement.
"I'm sure they are in their homes, hiding from the rain," Bad explains. "It's nothing."
As they reached the edge of the forest, Dream began to smell something rotten. The smell only gets stronger until they reach the meadow. Almost all of the flowers were replaced with withered roses, each giving off a disgusting smell that Dream hadn't noticed earlier.
Bad looked wide-eyed at all of the flowers. "You didn't tell me there was more than one!"
"That's because there wasn't more than one," Sapnap says quietly.
          Bad's smile quickly drops. "We should be careful. We don't know if these things will hurt us."
         "Oh, they hurt alright," Sapnap says. "Don't touch them and we should be fine."
          The group carefully makes their way across the meadow, doing everything they can to avoid the flowers. Dream couldn't believe how many had grown. If Bad was right, then that meant a ton of monsters had to die to make these flowers. Surly someone would've noticed a foreign floating thing killing zombies, right?
          Sapnap stopped in his tracks, nearly tripping Dream who was walking behind him. A few hundred yards away, there was a flying thing with three heads. It was surrounded with withered roses. "Um....Bad?" Sapnap asks, nervously. "Is that a wither?"
          Bad slowly nods. "We need to turn around and run back to the forest before it notices us."
The Wither begins to rise into the air, killing the trees around it. It had a magical blue glow around it that nearly blinded Dream when the sun hit it just right. Bad grabs Dream and Sapnap and begins walking backwards towards the tree for cover. George followed their lead, but ended up stepping on a withered rose.
Dream couldn't tell which was worse: the awful, high pitched scream that George let out, or the fact that it caught the Wither's attention. The Wither whipped around and faced them as Dream helped George back up. To their surprise, the monster turned back around and began floating towards the village.
"Dream!" Sapnap whispers. "We have to go help!"
"I know, I know, but what are we going to do? We can't beat that thing!" Dream responds.
Sapnap tightens his grip around his sword. "Says you!" He then rubs out of cover and towards the monster.
Dream jumps up and runs after him, calling his name. "SAPNAP, STOP!"
As Sapnap got closer, he yelled out a battle cry and held his sword above his head. The monster was right on the outskirts of the village, floating by a small home. Sapnap swings down and gets blasted back into Dream, knocking him down with him. They both sit up and notice that the blue coating around the Wither had vanished and the side of the house had been blown out. Inside, a little girl cowered in the corner, starring in horror at the monster. She looked like she was alone.
Sapnap shook off the blow he had taken, ignoring the pounding in his head. He charged at the Wither again while Dream ran to the girl in the house.
"Come on! We need to get you to safety!" Dream yells. The girl bursts into tears. "Come on kid!" He pleads. "We don't have time for this!" He reaches for her arm, but she pulls away from him. Outside of the broken home, Dream can hear Sapnap grunting as he fights the monster. "Let's go!" Dream says to the child, anxiously.
"Hey there!" A gentle voice says behind him. It's Bad. "Shh, everything is going to be ok. Let's go find a place to stay for a little bit, ok?" He carefully approaches the girl. Though there was complete terror in his eyes, he gave her a friendly smile. "I'll make sure you stay safe."
"What about my daddy?" The girl asks.
Bad reaches out for her. "We can find him when this is all over. Until then, I'm going to take care of you." The girl pushes past Dream and hugs Bad. Her cries soften as he picks her up in his arms. "George and Sapnap are fighting that thing. You need to help them," Bad says.
Dream nods and follows Bad out of the broken wall of the house. He spots Sapnap and George back in the meadow, trying to lure the minster away. Sapnap yells profanities while George fires arrows into it. Dream looks back towards the rest of the village and notices that there are chunks of homes missing as well as new holes in the ground that weren't there before. Looking back towards his friends, he sees that the Wither is absorbing the blocks it hovers over. In fact, it looked like it was growing bigger with every block it took in.
Dream looks around, hoping to find some sort of weapon. He settles on the sword that his father had been working on for the past few weeks. Dream didn't stop to consider the consequences of taking his father's sword. He was just focused on saving his friends. He rushes towards the Wither and shoves the sword into the back of its chest. The Wither lets out a terrible screech, then floats up. George tried to fire arrows into it, but it avoids them, then flies off, away from the village.
"Where's Bad?" George asks. "Is he ok? Please tell me he's ok."
Dream looks towards the village. "I don't know. He was helping some kid get to safety." He squats as he looks at the village, then spots Bad leaving a home with the girl holding his hand. Everyone else exits their homes as well. They murmur amongst themselves as they check out the damage done to the village. The three look at the damage done to the homes and business, shocked at how just being near the thing wasn't enough to destroy a town.
"Nick!" Sapnap's dad calls out. Sapnap weaves in between the crowd forming to reach his dad. His dad lets out a thankful sigh as he grab's his son's face. "Thank god you're alright! You had me so worried!" Dream grabs George's hand to keep from separating as they make their way to Sapnap.
Sapnap rubs his head as he says, "Did that thing hurt anyone?"
Sapnap's dad shrugs. "It's too soon to know."
"GUYS HELP!" Bad yells from the edge of the village. He was by the little girl's house. She was crying into his shoulder as he cradled her in his arms. Dream and George make their way over to him, but Sapnap stays back to talk to his dad.
"What's wrong?" Dream asks.
George looks down at the wrecked wall, then gags as he looks away. "Oh my god." Under all of the rubble from the wall was a man. His skin was grey and he looked malnourished. His facial expression was one of deep sadness. He was frozen in place.
Dream crouches down and tries to pull the man out from the debris, but the man's hands turn to dust after Dream barely pulls on him. Then, the rest of his body blows away with the breeze. Dream looks at his hands, which were coated in the grey ash. The Wither has taken its first life. George helps Dream up as Dream brushes the ash off onto his jeans.
"Dream?" Bad asks. "Do you happen to know if Lily has any other family members?"
"Lily?" Dream asks.
Bad nods his head to the girl in his arms. "That was her dad. She won't talk to me anymore. I need to know where her mom is."
Dream shrugs. "I'm sorry, but I don't know their family."
"He was a farmer," Sapnap says, walking up behind them. "I bought carrots and potatoes from him. He was a good man. Wife died during childbirth. His mother lives in a home two houses down from mine."
The little girl looks up to Sapnap. "Nicky?"
"Hey, Lily. Do you want to go visit your grandma for a little bit?" Sapnap says quietly. The little girl nods. Bad puts her down and Sapnap grabs her hand, guiding her out of the broken house. "Meet me at my place in 10 minutes," Sapnap says before he leaves. "My dad needs to talk to us."

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Word count: 2055

Published: June 25th

Sorry I haven't updated! My family is currently moving into a new house. Updates should be coming faster soon! <3