#pb ref

Visiting Dream was… rough some days. Sam knew it was because of Quackity. Sam knew it was because of the torture that left its mark upon Dream’s body. The first time he heard Dream call Quackity ‘sir’ left him tasting bile in the back of his throat. The memory of it haunted him every time he had to go back to the main cell. That morning, he managed to ignore the dead look in Dream's eyes, the slump to his shoulders, and the way he favored one leg more than the other. (Quackity's voice echoed in his ears as he crushedcrunchedsnapped and Dream's screams faded into the dark recesses of his mind). Along with the taste of bile, that image haunted him now. It had been months since Quackity started visiting on the daily, visiting Dream with the intent to get the revive book out of him one way or another.

Months of allowing Quackity in and no one else, lest they see the injuries Dream collected. Months of walking him through the prison, taking him to the main cell to the point he wondered if it might be best to take him through the guard entrance. But the guard entrance was for guards and there was no chance in hell that Sam would allow Quackity to be a guard. He was sure that if he let Quackity have full range of the prison, it would shatter the balance of power they shared. Outside the prison, Sam took orders from Quackity. Inside, though… Inside, Sam remained the final authority on all matters. 

At least, he tried to be. Quackity had ways of working into the cracks in his armor, begging, pleading, suggesting the routes they take down the winding road of his own schemes. But Sam still held authority. That was why, when Quackity went into the main cell, it was Sam's tools he used. No one was allowed to bring anything into the prison, but Sam. So no one would be allowed to bring in their own tools of torture. It had to be his own.

Even if it meant he rubbed his hands raw trying to clean Dream's blood from his axe. Even if it meant he could still smell Dream's fear and Quackity's vicious delight in the power he held over him as he carried his tools home with him. He realized, a few weeks in, that staying in the prison, keeping his spawn point there, was affecting him more than he thought it would. He’d see shadows moving in the corners of his eyes, beckoning him around corners to find nothing but shadows. His hands itched to redo the redstone, make it brighter, bright enough to chase away every single shadow that hid from him (brighterBRIGHTERCHASETHEMAWAY). He almost did it, until he realized that he’d have to redo the entire prison. Too many sleepless nights, too much redstone that buried under his nails and trapped itself in his mask. He found himself one night clawing at the beds of his nails, needing to remove the red that burned like redstone caught in an open wound, when he realized the red he found was not dust.

He remembered the way his hands stuttered, his breath catching in his throat as he watched his nails bleed. Bleeding blood mixed with gunpowder close to live redstone. Even as his breath hissed, he dragged down his mask and put his nails into his mouth, (keepitcleankeepitsafekeepitaway!), even as he tasted iron and redstone together, a poison used to kill far too many times over, even as the hissing from his mouth grew--

Sam exhaled long and slow, and then took his thoughts into his hands and set them aside. It was fine. He was fine. It was fine. He directed his trailing thoughts back to his checklist and forced his feet forward again. All the security measures were in place, the potions restocked, the nether portal was free of mobs, and his key cards had been updated to the latest version. All the other versions were locked in a chest buried in obsidian in the guard hallway. No one would find it. He made sure of that.

While Bad and Antfrost had been guards at one point, he could no longer trust them. Even though Antfrost had promised him that dying helped clear his mind of the egg's control, Sam's trust in them died the second they trapped them at the Red Banquet. Plus, he knew Bad had a soft spot for Dream. If he saw the condition Dream was in now and know who was allowing it to happen… Sam couldn't risk it. He couldn't.

They weren't the only ones who Sam watched his trust in wither and decay like corpses in the sun. Tommy snuck in to kill Dream. If Sam had not seen the axe, had not grabbed him in time, then…

Sam's hand gripped on his trident, anger smoldering in his lungs. He stopped again to breathe, to calm down the fans whirring in his mask. If he hadn't caught Tommy in time, then Dream may have died. Or Dream would have used Tommy to get out like he tried with Ghostbur. Or maybe he would've killed Ghostbur anyways and used Tommy to escape. Any of those would have led to the same conclusion in his head: Tommy and Ghostbur dead, and Dream alive or dead, escaped or gone.

And then there was Ponk. Sam closed his eyes against the pain in his chest. Ponk, who would walk around the server with him, talking about whatever they wished. Sam always loved to listen to them. Their voice was nice to his ears and it often soothed the circling storm in his head. He still remembered the first time they held hands with him. They entwined his fingers with theirs, laughing as they tugged him down the path. Warmth bloomed in his chest, if only for a brief moment. He loved Ponk, almost to the point he considered asking to be their soulmate. His happiness faded as those memories painted a dark stain in his mind. Ponk had stolen the keycards! They had refused to give them up!

Ponk forced Sam’s hand!

So he took theirs.

And now Ponk’s hand was left to sit and rot and decay in a location only Sam knew the coordinates for. Sam left it as a reminder of his purpose. He left it as a reminder of his mistakes and his failures and how he had to fix them. It was a reminder of the consequences he faced for the actions of others.

As he walked through the halls, Sam found himself drawn to the thought of those consequences, to the thought of the consequences he'd face should anyone learn what Quackity was doing here, day after day. What Sam allowed him to do, day after day. He couldn't allow anyone else's weapons into the prison, couldn't allow Quackity to kill Dream like he wanted to. Sam's purpose was to keep Dream here. Alive and locked up in the prison until he could be trusted again.

But when had Dream ever been trustworthy?

Sam paused again, familiar glass panes catching his eyes. He stared at the glass panes, at the reminder sitting behind there. He stepped forward and peered in, memorizing the details, memorizing what had changed. Like his reminder, people changed so quickly. One day, they were your friends. They laughed with you, built with you, shared their ideas and wants and dreams. They made promises with you. Promises they said they wanted to keep. And then the next day they turned on you. They trapped you in dangerous places, making new promises as they trampled over the ones they broke like they were as worthless as the life they intended to take.

“He was my friend,” Sam whispered to his reminder. “He was my friend.”

Sam stepped away from his reminder. He stepped away from the glass panes and resumed his walk through the prison. The path he took was a familiar route. It was also a dark route, at least in the corners of his mind. In the corners of his eyes, he saw the shifting of shadows. They grew with every step he took, trailing after him along the walls. They hid in the cracks of the blackstone and obsidian. He retrieved his lantern, carrying it in one of his free hands. If there was enough light, then the shadows would disappear. Surely, they would leave him alone today.

He was your friend, a shadow whispered in the back of his mind, its tendrils nipping at his heels. He spun on a dime, swinging the lantern at the offending thought. He felt it fade, but that only allowed the rest of them to gather at his back.

“Was,” Sam emphasized, turning around. “He was my friend once. He’s lost that right.”

And who’s fault was that? the shadows on the wall asked, their voices quiet, but firm as they pushed through his circling thoughts.

“Obviously, it was his fault,” Sam replied, first calm. The shadows didn’t respond, but he could feel their judgement. He could feel their disagreement. “What, do you think I’m wrong?” he snarled. The shadows shifted in the face of his growing anger, never parting under the storm, simply shifting with the flickering light. Sam breathed, standing tall once more. “It was not my fault that he chose his destructive ways. He destroyed an entire nation because it stood against him! Tommy stood against him and look where it got him! Dream abused him! His actions caused Tommy to become suicidal! That was not my fault!” 

And what did you do to stop it?

“I… I offered my help,” Sam said, his voice falling quiet as he stepped back. The shadows surged after the retreating light.

Do you think that was enough?

“I built Sam Nook to help take his mind off it! To give him something to do! I tried! Is that not enough?”

But what did you do? Sam tried to protest, but the shadows overrode him. Allowed him into the main cell to visit someone so dangerous? His blood is on your hands. His death is because of you.

“I had to! I had to leave him in there so I could investigate the explosions! I didn’t… I didn’t think he would kill Tommy!”

And yet you allowed it to happen. You allowed Ghostbur to die here as well. Who’s next?

“No one. No one is dying in here anymore. I’m not letting it happen anymore.” 

And yet you let Quackity here. Is he not a threat as well?

“Quackity promised he wouldn’t kill him. He gave me his word.”

You trust Quackity, and yet you don’t trust Dream.

"He's the bad guy!"

Is he?

"Ye--what do you mean 'is he'? Of course he is!" Do you think he's just a good guy doing bad things?" He could feel the shadows agree. He stomped forward, netherite-heavy steps echoing through the hall. His tone was as harsh as his breath, firm in his truth, unbreakable as bedrock. "Bad guys do bad things. All he's done are bad things. Therefore, he's the bad guy."

Then what does that make you?

"What?" The shadows create closer, coiling even as he swung the lantern towards them. They flickered at the edges of the light in time to the flame.

How many times did you let suffering happen? How many people died and were hurt because of you?"

"That's-that's not the same!" he said quickly, stumbling over his words and his feet as he brought the light in front of him like a shield. The shadows stepped closer, their judgement a heavy weight in his mind.

Is torture not the same as abuse? How can you condemn one version and still allow the other?

“That’s not me! It’s Quackity!”

It’s your weapons. It’s your tools. It’s your hands that open the door for him. Is that not proof enough?

“It’s-it’s--” Sam cut off before shouting at the shadows. “I’m not the bad guy here!”

This isn’t guilt by association. It never was. Sam felt the shadows tilt their heads at him, felt them consider him. Their voices were a calm contrast to his roiling emotions. Who feeds him raw potatoes?

"That wasn't my choice!" Sam hissed at the shadows. They only seemed to grow around him. They bit at his ankles, tore at his arms, buried themselves in the cracks of his armor, whispering until his skull echoed with it. "I wanted to feed the prisoners steak, but Dream wanted to use potatoes!"

To keep him barely alive.

"But alive!"

Is there a difference? 

"Wha," Sam licked his dry lips, eyeing the shadows in the corner. "What do you mean? My job is to keep him alive. He's alive."

But for how long? You know the hunger in Quackity's eyes. You know the hunger in the twitch of his hands. The shadows shifted along the wall. Sam's gaze felt heavy and haunted as he tracked their movement. What happens when you're not enough to stop him anymore? What happens when his hand twitches too far? What happens when you're too slow to stop it?

"Shut up," Sam hissed at the shadows, his mask flaring and whirring with the effort to keep his breathing under control.

What happens, the shadows hissed in return.

"Shut. Up," Sam snarled. His grip on the lantern tightened.

When you fail?

"SHUT UP!" The lantern crashed into the wall, shattering on impact. Fire flared briefly, flames licking the obsidian before dying to the shadows as they retreated from him. Like the fire, his anger faded as silence closed in around him.

Panting, he stared at the ruined lantern. His gaze focused through the ground, unseeing and still seeing far too much. "I can't," he breathed, seeing Quackity crossing to the cell in the depths of his memory. "I can't fail," he breathed, feeling the shadows creeping around him again. He could still hear Quackity's voice, his urging to kill Dream, to avenge Tommy.

Sam knew the hunger in Quackity's eyes. He knew the twitch in Quackity's hands when he took Sam's tools. Sam knew what he wanted to do to Dream. But he promised! whispered a small voice in the back of his skull. The shadows rose up before him, their anger radiating out until it aligned with his own. 

What makes you think you can trust him? What makes you think you can trust any of them?

I’m gonna talk about the limbos for a hot minute because it connects to my idea of how the heck ghosts work.

In canon, we’ve seen 3 examples of limbo: Tommy’s, Wilbur’s, and Schlatt’s. As far as I can tell, Tommy’s limbo was basically a dark, black void that he was just in. No light, no visibility, nothing. Wilbur’s was the train station, full of smoke and stuff. Schlatt’s is his gym in a cave.

In my AU, I give Dream a limbo that is similar to Tommy’s, but more like a white void instead of a black one. In this limbo, the floor is like a lake with fish inside. If he touches a fish, he sees a memory of him from someone else’s perspective. In Dream’s limbo, there is an invisible presence. This presence I’ve named the Voice of the Many (the Voice for short). The Voice behaves as sort of a guiding presence in the limbo. It is neither malicious or helpful to Dream. It just is.

When a person dies their last death, as decided with the universe, their soul gets guided by the Voice to a place where it can rest and recover (limbo). This process often takes literal ages and it may involve the soul learning a lesson so they can move on. Once they’re done, they get reborn in the same kind of form or into another form. Reviving someone pretty much just completely fucks this process up.

When someone gets revived, their soul is ripped out of the limbo and, if not properly prepared for, it will leave a hole in limbo that throws the afterlife out of balance. The revival process, as written in the revive book, does account for this. However, different intentions will cause different reactions.

For an example, when Dream revived Wilbur, he killed Ghostbur. The hole that Wilbur left in his limbo was immediately replaced with Ghostbur, even though Ghostbur would not have actually had that kind of limbo.

With Tommy, Dream’s intentions were fully in killing Tommy and reviving him soon after. This intention was made known to the Voice and it managed to prepare a limbo for Tommy’s soul to reside in briefly. His soul didn’t get the whole rest/recover treatment, further exacerbating his trauma with being killed and revived. Because of the required short time frame, Tommy’s limbo was actually and literally inside his corpse.

So with how ghosts in my AU work, there are a few things I need to make clear that now conflict with canon.

The bodies of ghosts are tangible and solid, though there is some slight transparency to their forms. They also often have either muted colors or enhanced colors, something to differentiate them from the previously living person. They do not feel temperatures like a living person does, usually taking significantly longer to feel warm or cold. Rain still does damage the body.

Ghosts are not always the same people they were when they were alive. In Ghostbur’s case, Phil often describes him as being a shell of Wilbur. Dreaming (Dream’s ghost) is more Dream’s attachments than Dream himself.

Because of point 2, ghosts often have some form of amnesia, because they take on basically one part of the living person.

When a person dies, their soul is removed from their corpse and taken into limbo by the Voice. The body then decays into the ground, but before this happens, a copy of the body is made and turned into a ghost. The ghost spawns where they first manifested in whatever body they have copied and will be given memories that are related to the copied body.

Here’s the more explicit example in regards to Dream/Dreaming:

Dream is the soul stuck in limbo. Dreaming is the ghost version of Dream. Dreaming’s form is a copy of Dream’s body with most of his colors being muted, but his eyes are VERY bright. Dreaming originally manifested when Dream abandoned his attachments (which is why he respawns in the Vault), but Dreaming didn't have a body until Dream died.

Phil’s chat is usually represented by a murder of crows and it is usually numerous, far more than would probably be in a natural murder. In PB (short term for the Ghost Dream AU), the crows are far from natural.

The crows exist in a similar fashion to a single entity that can divide upon itself or morph back together into one. This makes it easier for the murder to follow Phil around, though he often uses them as multiples. Some reasons for this include: it’s funny, intimidation, sending messages to multiple people, or keeping an eye on things when he can’t be there. He usually keeps a crow following Wilbur around, just in case something happens to him (he doesn’t trust written messages from his son anymore).

When a crow splits, a near-mirror image of itself literally splits off from the starting crow. This doesn’t seem to hurt the crows and it looks like it’s a very natural way in how they function. Some of the crows have distinct features from each other, especially if they are crows that Phil prefers to talk to/interact with. (Think of cc!Phil interacting with his friends/mods).

The crows have the ability to speak, but Phil is the only person to be able to understand them when they’re speaking normally. To others, it sounds like normal crow sounds, though sometimes a crow will try to be funny and mimic Speech. Phil is able to speak through the crows, and they have the ability to have a person speak through them to Phil, assuming Phil initiates the conversation. This works on a very similar level to communicators, which allow people on the server to communicate with others when they’re not in range of each other (VCs or the server chat). However, speaking through the crows is seen as a hidden channel, and cannot be tracked/hacked like the communicators can be.

In order to initiate a conversation through the Murder, Phil will usually say “Sing with me/Speak with me” with the intention of speaking directly to someone. Usually, this person will already have a crow in the vicinity. Once the line of communication is made, the crow will open its mouth and Phil’s voice will come out instead, repeating everything he says like a walkie talkie. If someone wishes to talk back through the crow to Phil, they need to wait for Phil to initiate. Once he has initiated, they say “Sing for me/Speak for me”. Again, once the line of communication is open, the crow opens its mouth and the person’s voice will come through to Phil and vice versa.

Speaking through the Murder is usually off-putting for first time users, and can be off-putting even after you’ve gotten used to it being a thing. It’s just a tad strange to hear Phil’s voice coming out of a bird.