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And the universe said everything you need is within you / And the universe said you are stronger than you know

This is my contribution to the #ProjectEndPoem collab for Dream's birthday hosted by the wonderful @theftshrubbery and @timetravelkoolaid

Rated T, but with some heavy themes including Techno's death

Summary: The poem may say some very wise things but it takes Dream a while to learn them

Read on AO3 or right here:

Look at it. Why does it keep insisting it’s separate from everything else?

What?

This player. Look at it.

It’s lonely.

Does it not know it is never alone? Does it not know half of its cells aren’t even human but microorganisms? How can it feel lonely when some of them were even given to it by its mother at birth?

He’s a teenager.

In the long dream, it’s 4:06 pm and he is 13 years old. They are in the kitchen, his mom nursing a cup of tea and him, refusing to do his homework. The other chairs are empty, his siblings long done and gone, waiting for their return at dinner. “You can do this,” she says. “I can’t.” “You can.” “I’m not smart like them.” He nods at the abandoned seats. “Clay,” she sighs. She likes to call him her ray of sunshine but lately, the sky has been cloudy most days. “You can do this. Everything you need is in here.” She leans over the table and brushes her finger against his temple. She means well, worried and exhausted as she is, running on theine, and knowing he is just stalling until she has to pick up their youngest. He looks back at the page, the numbers are still swimming in front of his eyes, and all he hears is Something is wrong with you if you can’t do this.

__

In the game the player is born from the void, made from clay, created as a blank slate. They can be however and whoever they want: a fighter, a warrior, a conqueror.

So he sets out into the wilderness on his quest to slay the dragon at the end of the world.

He’s a hunter, he’s got no use for words, can’t even speak. He takes the inventory as a given, punches a tree to craft a tool to make a weapon, and doesn’t think.

You were shot by Skeleton

He gets more resources, food, coal, and [Acquire Hardware]. It’s man versus nature, and he is winning, cutting down everything that stands in his way.

You were doomed to fall by Creeper

They say the monsters just appeared one day, a mob of mindless evil with the only intention to kill.

You have made the advancement [We Need to Go Deeper]

He spends his days in the nether looking for a fortress, and his nights under a tree killing endermen. He never sees the sun or another soul he would consider his equal. Everything is either resource and enemy or both.

The nether is a barren wasteland, always has been, burning hot and full of

You tried to swim in lava

The zombie pigmen are harmless unless you –

You were killed by Zombie Pigmen

--

In the long dream, it’s 7:03 pm, he is 15 years old and they are late.

“We’re not gonna win anyways,” he says as he awkwardly changes into his uniform on the passenger seat. His dad is drumming the wheel, willing the light to turn green. “You are a good team,” he says. “Yeah, that’s why we lose every game,” he says, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “Not in that tone, young man.” “Sorry, sir,” he mumbles. “Put your belt on. You’ll have to hit the ground running.” He threads the belt with the flags attached around his waist. He doesn't know whether he is talking to his dad or his coach right now, and he doesn't know if he is talking to his son or the quarterback. Or worse, both and he could disappoint him twice. “Clay, you are stronger than you know. I need you to at least act like you believe it.” “Yes, sir,” he mumbles.

They win. He breaks his ankle in a collision with an opposing player, but they win. And he learns that he’s strong enough to break, to break himself and remake himself to fit the expectations, to play the game, to win the game, to go through the pain and ignore everything else.

--

When the player activates the portal it announces with a loud thunder to the whole world that he did it.

You have just earned the achievement [The End?]

The end is cold and empty, and of course, now there are more endermen than he could ever need. And she is also here.

He is strong, invincible, death’s merely a temporary inconvenience, and he is ready to take on his biggest foe, hunt down his prey, and let death reunite them with the sweet silence of the void where he can be whole again.

He is made for this, built for this. She is too. A threat for him to overcome, maybe even cut from the same void as him, meant to be killed by him, die like him.

You have just earned the achievement [The End.]

But it’s not the end. He collects his hunting trophy, but it doesn’t make him feel better.

He jumps into the end fountain, filled with the stars of the universe.

I see the player you mean.

He respawns because of course you respawn. Clay to clay, dirt to dirt, ash to ashes, and dust to dust. This isn’t really the end no matter how much he wants it to be.

He hits Esc and severs his connection, forcing himself awake.

--

In the long dream, it’s 11:32 pm, he is 17 years old and they don’t really have a bedtime anymore. Him and his brother that is. They are growing up tightly knitted, they are becoming together, making each other in the symbiosis of siblings. They are constantly infecting each other, be it with chickenpox or memes. Framed by their sisters left and right, they get pushed together in the middle. They are two peas in a pot, the boys, nurtured by the same milk, and the two soldiers under the command of their father. They are playing the same game of posing, posturing, ribbing, teasing, hazing, and fighting brothers get taught in many places.

They are the same, they want to be the same, but then his admission of “I wish the dragon could kill me for real”, his hopelessness and nihilism cut between them, forces them apart and every attempt to explain himself only makes it worse. “I wanna be an author or go into tech, but I don’t have what it takes. I don’t feel like it’s going to happen, but I’d rather die than work a normal job, I can’t do it.”

So they aren’t the same and they can’t be. But they can still be close as his brother pushes into his bedroom and says, “I’m staying here tonight,” forcefully and ready to fight, but not their usual game, not the setup for a joke, nor a bit.

Instead, they play a different game, one that takes a different kind of skill. They take their armor off one strategic move at a time, play confessions like aces, tears like crits. They trade vulnerabilities in the dark, using yarn from their secret stash to knit them even tighter together.

If he just has his family, his kin like this forever he’s gonna be fine.

--

So the player respawns and starts anew. He builds a life for himself, learns new skills, makes friends and rivals, wins a battle, and loses a duel. He carries more with him now than he knows. He thinks he’s starting at zero when he generates a new world, ready to play survival.

But neither he nor this land is a blank page. Neither of them is innocent and both of them have scars. But he can’t see that yet.

The player fell asleep sitting against a tree and gets woken up by something nudging his side. A black wolf has his snout buried in his bag. Amused by the cheekiness the player throws it some of his cooked steaks and the smell lures the other three wolves out of hiding. He isn’t sure whether they are wolves or wild dogs, but their curiosity is refreshing.

The wolves know that the land is haunted and the dead aren’t staying dead, and –

There is a stranger in their territory. But this creature is alive and, despite its smell, probably not food. They disagree on what to do. He might become a threat, or good entertainment, or an ally, or a friend, so it’s better to stay around.

The player only understands what’s going on when they are waiting for him in the tree line after he ransacked another village (only three gold ingots and some bread). He expected them to be long gone, but here they were, roaming around him, sniffing his clothes and nudging his hands as if to say Did you bring us anything?

So he shares and stays. The player learns to listen to their yelps and growls and pants. He tells them apart through their interactions. One black wolf would be a mystery but these four have an established pack dynamic he slowly fits himself into over days and nights.

Aided by thousands of years of co-evolution they all learn to communicate through calls and barks, raised eyebrows, pointed fingers, and upturned tails.

He gets consulted on whether something is just passing through or a threat, deemed useless for territory marking, odd for preferring cows over sheep, and revered for his pets and scratches. He slots into their hunting routine with his ranged attacks like it’s in their DNA to hunt skeletons together. They get the bones, he the arrows, it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.

They share meals, body heat and cuddles, and –

. . . grief when a fatal arrow burrows itself in black fur. They hold vigil around their fallen kin and he joins their mournful howling. The past can still be deadly.

The player leaves the next day. The other three are now tainted by death too as he can’t look at them without seeing a crumbled corpse. He has to let them go so he can move on. Caught in that logic and with the feared melancholia clouding his mind he runs to find a portal.

He is wrong though.

He is.

Why does he still do this? Does he not know that even a proto-dog intertwined in the magic fabric of his dreaming is real?

Not yet. And old habits die screaming.

--

It’s 3:13 am in the long dream and he is 20 years old. He has stitched himself together again, has been spinning his web in the dark, scheming like a criminal for months now.

Scheming to make them love him, to blow up, to cause a ripple in the weave of the internet. He knows his plan is good, he figures he got a pretty good shot. It has to be perfect though, it has to seem effortless, and he underestimated how much effort that takes and how much sleep he’ll lose.

Is losing right now by being paranoid over this text message. He only gets one shot at this. George will either say Yes or You’re crazy and the rest will be history.

So spins his own destiny by choosing George. He plays the opening move of a game they have never played before. A game of a scale that will change their lives or sink their savings.

You’re crazy, but I’m in and soon they are playing cat’s cradle with the internet cables under the ocean floor, passing figures of string looped around hands and fingers back and forth, changing them a little every time, transforming them into something better, tying them together forever and ever.

--

The player spawns in the nether with a whoosh. He doesn’t immediately spot a fortress but he’s in a red biome so he might as well start with trading. He crafts himself a pair of gold boots and throws some ingots to two piglins wandering around.

The piglins share the crimson forests with hoglins, that are sometimes quarry, sometimes playmates –

Shush. Listen.

“Hallo,” the player mutters in a language his tongue didn’t grow up speaking. “Hello,” one of the piglin says back, looking up from the gold. “Can you say more or was that it?” “No, I –“ he stutters in surprise. “I understood that.” “How did you learn? None of the runners ever seem to bother, they just throw us gold, kill some blaze, maybe some of us too, and run off again.” “A – a friend taught me.” They may not have started out that way, but he can gladly count him as an ally and friend now. “He’s a hybrid.” “Ah. They tend to wander.” “Can you –“ Now that they are talking the player has a lot of questions. “Can you not leave?” “We could,” the other piglin says, handing him some pearls and picking up another gold ingot. “But most of us are committed to the cause.” “The cause? What could you possibly have to do in this hellscape?” The piglin chucks a piece of quartz at him. “Don’t mock things you don’t understand, little runner.” “You see these mushroom-trees?”, the first piglin asks him. “Yes?” “Can you feel how it’s cooler here than anywhere else?” “Yes.” “We couldn’t breathe without them. And they would go extinct without us. The insects that pollinated them died out a long time ago.” “Oh that’s how you survive!” he exclaims. He gives them more gold, not knowing anymore if they are bartering or he’s trading it for stories. “It’s about more than surviving. It’s about living and dying together and healing this land. The ice –“ “Ice?!” “It’s astonishing to me how little the overworlders know their own history,” the other piglin snorts. “They take the privilege to forget,” the first one says before turning back to him. “Yes, the ice. This place wasn’t always burning hot. It always had volcanic activity but the fumes of industry and the subsequent collapse of the ecosystem changed the climate.” “And be sure to remember that it wasn’t us who exploited this land for resources and then vacated like the plague when there was nothing left you deemed valuable.” “Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Is there – anything I can do?” “Do you have more gold?” “Sure. What do you need that for by the way?” he asks, handing over his last nugget. The piglins regard him with silence for a second. “You might speak our language but that doesn’t make you one of us.” “We’ll tell you something else in return for a favor.” “Sure. What is it?” “The next of your fortresses is that way. Make sure to destroy the spawner after you get your blaze rods.” “I can do that. Thank you. You don’t happen to have more obsidian?” “This is all we can trade you. You need to make what you have already enough.”

The player parses his inventory and finds that they are right. It might not be easy, it isn’t going to be pretty, but with a bit of creativity and luck, he can make this work.

--

. . . the duh-dum of a Discord message yanks him out of the dream. It’s from Technoblade’s account but it’s not from Techno.

It’s 1:56 am in the long dream, he is 22 years old, one year or 73 days younger than Techno, whose birthday has already passed and who just passed.

He played well.

The dice got rolled and they missed Dream. It aches in his cancer-free bones with a strange type of guilt. He didn’t do anything. But neither did Techno. It’s so unfair. The anger catches like a wildfire – fuck cancer – and he can’t . . .

The message asks him to tell the others but he can’t carry this news. He’s already crumbling underneath them. He is not strong enough to face them, how can he face them when he is still breathing and Techno –

He needs to go, to run, he wants to hit something, kill something, throw himself off a cliff. He goes Back to Game and the player jumps into the end portal.

The End greets him silent and endless. He makes his way over to the central island and once he climbs up, he realizes what’s been missing. Neither the beating of majestic wings nor the hiss of lilac fire is to be found, just the obsidian pillars rising into the starless sky like a memorial. The dragon is already dead.

He isn’t short on tears right now, but he didn’t think to pick up a ghast one. His fighting spirit has left him anyway, dissipated into the cool air, leaving him alone with his sorrow and his grief. So he climbs up one of the towers and plops down on the edge, feet hanging over. He stares into the void and doesn’t even notice the soft flapping of wings until somebody sits down beside him.

Oh, I’m delighted to see them again.

Startled, the player looks up. The figure is tall and lanky, and he immediately averts his eyes again when he realizes they are ender. But something is different about them. Endermen don’t normally have wings. Or a tail.

“Who are you?” he asks. “You wouldn’t be able to pronounce my name,” they say. “What are you doing here, overworlder?” “I wanted to kill the dragon. But I guess I must have mistaken the world.” “The dragons are long gone; I am their speaker,” they explain, and he glances at them from the corner of his eyes. “Is that why you have wings?” he asks. “Yes. They are a sign of the kinship between our species I got a long time ago. Now they are all gone.” “So you didn’t choose this either?” “Either?” “My friend is dead,” he says and the words hurt as he says them out loud for the first time. “I’m sorry to hear that.” “I – thank you. Do you ever wish you didn’t have their wings and could move on?” he asks, still staring into the dark void and not making eye contact. He finds a familiar comfort in not looking at each other but looking at the same thing together while talking. “And let them die the second death of oblivion? No. It’s my task to keep their memory present so we can move on without denying the past.” “The end wasn’t always like this, wasn’t it?” “No. This place echoes with the destruction that extinguished the dragons and so many others and it always will, but there is room here for the living too.”

It's devastating. So much ravaged and so many gone in the wake of their great hero’s quest.

Don’t lose hope. Nothing is ever truly lost, you know that. They are still with us in the atoms in the air, in the very breath the surviving take. They live through the impact they had on us and the actions we take as a result.

“Is there anything I can do to redeem myself?” the player asks, but the offer is insignificant compared to the endless ocean of grief.

Hush. He is learning. Let the speaker decide for themself.

“Unless you plan to stay and help?” the enderman says. “No, I –“ “If you have any dirt on you we’ll gladly take it.” “I do.” He drops it and they pick it up. “May I ask another question?” “Yes,” they say and he thinks there is amusement in their voice. “How do you –“ he starts but can’t even formulate his helplessness into coherent words. “I wouldn’t even be here without him. I watched his videos before I’d even started and now I owe him so much.” “So a part of you is like him,” they say, brushing his thigh with their tail. He nods. “But my friend’s dad wants me to tell our other friends.” “So you should go. The portal is open.” They gesture at the bedrock structure beneath them. “I can’t! We were friends, yes, I wasn’t even the closest to him! This responsibility-, I can't.” “Hm.” Their tail brushes his thigh in reassurance. “It sounds to me like you must respond to this. And you have the ability too. You are stronger than you seem to know.” He slumps down. “I just wish he wasn’t dead.” “I know.” We know, little dreamer, we know.

The player takes a deep breath and logs out. In the long dream, he picks up his phone to call his mom, and later he picks up Techno’s crown to wear. He cries some more then, but he’s gonna be just fine.

--

In the long dream, it’s 2:34 pm.

He doesn’t know that.

He’s 25 years old.

He doesn’t know that either.

Dream is kneeling next to the fusion rig, fiddling with the cables, when George disrupts the concentrated silence. „Happy birthday, by the way, idiot.” Everybody on the basketball court freezes. “What? Oh shit!” Sapnap exclaims, pulling off his VR headset. “What?” Dream asks simultaneously and checks his watch over Sapnap’s shoulder as he gets dragged into a hug. AUG 12th it says clear as day. “Oh yeah,” his brother chimes in. “Mom is expecting you for dinner.” “What?! But we are recording today!” “I can’t believe you all forgot,” George cackles. “Dream said we shouldn’t check Twitter on recording days. How did you remember?” Sapnap asks George. “I’m just the best,” George shrugs. Dream smiles as they descend into bickering. Looks like the video is getting pushed back, but he’s not gonna pass up on his grandma’s banana pudding recipe.

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