Chapter Text
Tommy woke up to cold limbs, a sore back, and an empty house. Not a sound was heard, as that was how it’s always been on the little planet he called home. Deadly silent.
Just as he did nearly every morning, the boy sat up and withdrew the blinds that sat in front of his bedroom window. He imagined that the twinkling, celestial bodies floating in the sky happily bid him good morning, and he pointlessly waved back at them as if they could see.
As the boy looked up at the stars through the window, he felt a familiar, empty ache in his heart join him as a silent, comfortless companion. It reminded him that his friends couldn't talk and move like he could, because they were just toys. As much as he pretended, he would remember that his pet cow was just an imaginary animal he found in a book once, and not a real person he could talk to either. And with how cold and heartachingly empty the shelter was while Dream was away, the dark cavity in his chest was only dug deeper.
That feeling, Tommy believed, was called loneliness– a complex, deep-seated emotion he had long gotten used to as his days grew longer without company. It would go away temporarily once his morning truly got started, when he had his tasks to distract him from it's lingering presence, but Tommy knew it would only come back once he got ready for bed at the end of the day.
Loneliness was an awful thing. It sucked the life and excitement out of everything around him, including himself. Even on days when he was really, genuinely happy, it would strike to remind him that he was painfully alone, because he knew well that the galaxy was full of creatures who hated him, and they wouldn't hesitate to slaughter him like they did to everyone else of his kind.
But that's just how it was when you were the last Human alive in the entire universe.
The boy dug behind his mattress and retrieved his hidden, secret notebook. Flipping to the latest page he's marked up, he used a pen (running out of ink, that wasn't good) to add a tally to the barrage of marks that have already been left there over the past several months. He's been using it to count the days since Dream left him for his latest trip into space.
Tommy's been feeling a lot more lonely these days. Dream's been gone for much longer than usual. Having recounted every single tally in the notebook, despite him already knowing the number of tallies already from counting the day before, it told him that it had been exactly three months since the day the man was supposed to return home. That means Dream's been gone for about one-hundred and seven days. That was one-hundred and seven long, lonely, exhausting days too many, in his expert opinion.
Dream said once when he was younger that it was natural for him to feel lonely when the other wasn't around, and that Humans have always been naturally clingy and easy to upset. But you'd think it would have motivated the man to come back faster, knowing Tommy was patiently waiting for him…
Dream also missed Tommy's tenth birthday, even though he promised to be there this time. Of course, ten was not as impressive as thirteen would have been, which was the age which his friend always said he would be healthy and strong enough to receive the fated “Big Surprise” (which was the allowance to finally leave the planet they lived on together and explore space, he was pretty sure), but Tommy would have still loved to celebrate it with him nonetheless. It was incredibly disappointing, and he'd actually gone to bed crying that night, but Tommy could deal with it; he was a big man, afterall. Big men didn’t complain about things they didn’t like (no matter how tempting).
Tommy sighed. It was going to be another long day of waiting, then. He gave himself five more minutes of sitting in bed before deciding to get up.
It was lonely being the only Human alive– in fact, It was lonely on this little space-rock he called home, where he was shielded away from the violence that came from the rest of the universe towards his kind. Once, he would have been just like them– cruel, thoughtless, violent, bloodthirsty– just like his ancestors were before they were faced against their own tyranny. He's been taught from a young age to be even better than them, obviously, but the price of his peaceful life took on the form of solitude and isolation.
Sometimes, on days where his heart hurt the most, Tommy would think. He had a lot of time to think, and there was a lot for a boy like him to think about. The things he thought about the most these days were the likelihood of his very existence– or namely, the likelihood of the existence of other humans.
It was a silly thing to think about, he knew that. But sometimes, he couldn't help but wish for more. The universe was endless and ever-growing, right? That’s what Dream always said, anyway. There was endless life and discoveries on the horizon, places spaceships have yet to touch and frontiers people have yet to tread– So surely, there had to be someone else like him out there. Surely, maybe, he couldn't be the last of his kind…?
Or maybe not. Maybe he was just kidding himself.
He'd been reminded many times before by the one person, the one alien who cared about him enough to raise him when others wouldn't have stepped up to the challenge, that the chances of there being another Human alive out there was more than a billion to one– Tommy being the one chance in a billion. All other Humans like him have died out, either from killing each other, or for being hunted by other aliens in the galaxy after their planet died. So wishing or hoping for others like him were pointless endeavors, as disappointing the truth was.
So yeah. Tommy Innit was the last of his species alive in the entire universe, and that's just how it was. Nothing about that was ever going to change.
But he didn't mind the loneliness most of the time, really. It's just that some days we're harder than others, especially when he was all by himself.
(He was by himself today. Again.)
Ignoring the lump that gathered in his throat at the thought of Dream abandoning him (Dream would never do that, Dream loved Tommy, and yes he would leave for a long time sometimes but he would always come back), Tommy gently shut his notebook closed and slid it into the slim grotto he found between the wall and the back of the mattress.
The Human boy felt guilty, knowing that usually he would get in trouble with Dream for having the notebook out for things other than drawing without showing him first. But the boy figured that he would probably excuse it when he explained that it was basically a special clock that he made for himself to keep track of the time. Dream didn't like him doing things by himself, saying that it was an ungrateful thing to do when he was there to do everything for him, but Tommy hoped he'd look past it this time since he wasn't here right now. He desperately needed something to keep track of the days since he couldn’t physically count past ten since he only had ten fingers to count with.
(Then again, he could always just keep it a secret. It was bad of him to think about, but Dream didn't like cleaning the house as much as Tommy did, and he wasn't able to angle his head in different directions the same way Tommy's Human body allowed him to, so he could easily take a chance at guessing it would never be found if he hid it close to the floor. What Dream didn't know wouldn't hurt him, and Tommy wouldn't have to risk getting in trouble for it– it was clearly a win-win all around.
Besides, Tommy rationalized for his own comfort, think of it as your biggest test on self… self-real-eye-ents!)
When Dream inevitably came home, he would be so very proud of Tommy for being able to survive without his help! It was much better than his animalistic ancestors would have done. That's why all the other stupid, dumb Humans were dead, and Tommy wasn't.
Right. So everything was fine. Today would just be another day, and everything would be fine– maybe today, Dream might come home! The thought of that was motivation enough for the boy to finally get out of bed and get his chores for the day started.
His fingers brushed against the wall as he walked through the bedroom's doorless threshold, and the Human felt a shiver go up his spine at the chill he felt echo through his arm in response. His fingers were always so cold, and Tommy could never stop them from shaking no matter how much he tried to hold them still. He resisted the urge to suck on his hand to make them warmer. Dream didn't like when he stuck anything in his mouth that shouldn't be here, saying it could get him sick, and he's reminded the boy constantly about how sucking on things like a baby would just mess up his teeth.
First things first, he walked into the dining room and crawled underneath the table and shuffled through his stash.
Finding his stash was weird at first– he was cleaning on his hands and knees one time and noticed some scratches on the floor and on the bottom of the wall. They were deep gashes in the wood, kinda like the ones he made on the trees outside of the house when he was bored. He followed them until they ended underneath the dining room table, where he pried open a loose, scratched-up floorboard and found all kinds of neat goodies underneath!
Most of the treasure was already there when Tommy found it– lots of shiny, flat, metal rocks with cool shapes etched on the sides of them, a really long shirt with a pretty bow tied on the back, an extra blanket (that had been a very exciting discovery, it was very cold at night, and Dream never questioned the sudden appearance of another blanket), and his favorite treasure: a black and white squishy thing filled with soft fluffy white stuff that kinda looked like Henry, only it had a longer tail and pointier ears, and it had really bendy metal sticking out of it in places that made it uncomfortable to hug. Sometimes he also played with the black and yellow round squishy thing too, but he liked the other squishy thing more because it reminded him better of Henry.
Overtime, he had added his own little treasures to the stash pile. He once found dirty, moldy green shoes that were three times smaller than his feet out in the backyard under a rock! He’d been overjoyed to find something new to add to the stash, and the shoes were still there years later. Another time, he found a small, shiny loop attached to a long string outside while playing in the dirt! He had cleaned it up and also hid it away like the others.
Dream never found out about his treasures, nor had he ever hinted at having any knowledge of it. Tommy knew deep down that he should have told Dream about the stash as soon as he found it, especially since it wasn’t fair for him to know about it while Dream couldn’t know because he wasn’t able to look down to the floor like Tommy could, but… it felt nice to have his own secrets. Just like the notebook, Dream not knowing about his treasure stash wouldn’t hurt him either.
Going through the stash today, he found it was just the same as he had left it yesterday before he went to bed– the squishy stuff, the long shirt, the shoes, the shiny coins and the loop on a string were all there. He sorted through the pile a little longer before settling on and grabbing the black and white squishy thing.
"You gonna help me out today, Edward?" Tommy asked the soft thing, holding it close. Edward (a character from a book Dream read him once) would be joining him on today's chore adventure, just like it did yesterday.
As if sharing his excitement, the little guy's soft little head bobbed up and down with Tommy's movements, making the boy grin happily.
"Thanks," he cheered, "I can always count on you or Benson to help out!"
Tomorrow, he might switch things up and pick Benson, the black and yellow squishy thing (Another character name from that same book– they were best friends, him and Edward, but sometimes Tommy made them kiss for fun), but he would just have to see. He liked Edward much better than Benson most of the time, so his mood could change on that.
Now it was time for the regular chores to be done. Dream may not have been around in awhile, but that didn’t mean Tommy could slack off on all his duties (though, he admits to cheating on a few of them). No, he had important work to do!
Stepping outside, he frowned at the mess that was left behind. Lasting all throughout yesterday and last night, the meteor shower (that Dream once explained came to be from a couple asteroids from the nearby asteroid belt, the rocks colliding into each other and shooting small boulders into their planet's ats-mos-feer) had left behind a lot of rocks in the front yard, and he needed to get rid of them before he could do anything else.
"Looks like we have our work cut out for us," Tommy narrated to Edward, already moving to the shed to grab his tools.
Usually, Tommy wouldn't be allowed outside so soon after a storm, because there was a slim chance it wasn't over yet and the house was the only safe place that could bounce the rocks away. But Dream wasn't here to tell him no, and Tommy had a lot of work to do today! He also enjoyed being outside, and the older alien wouldn't usually let him leave the house while he was home without a good reason, so he would gladly take the fresh air while he could still get it. Dream liked to hoard him inside the house for a long time whenever he came home.
The day would be going as it usually went. Tommy grabbed a shovel from the shed, and got to work digging up any rocks that got lodged into the ground last night. It was a tough job, and the rocks were always extremely heavy, but the Human worked on the yard all the time, so he knew he could do it even without Dream's help. The hard work did not deter him at all, however. As tedious as it was, Tommy was excited to get it done– the faster he did his chores, the sooner he could play!
Tommy grew sweaty, fast, but the air surrounding him was cool and crisp enough to keep him from overheating. It seemed Edward was doing alright too, the boy stopping every once in a while to give him a few encouraging pats and words to remind the toy just how loved he was. Tommy always felt great when Dream did that, so he made sure to do the same to Edward and Benson as often as possible.
It was very, very cold on Tommy’s and Dream's dwarf planet, so much so that the colder hours during the sleep cycle were brutal and made it hard to move or sleep. Dream once read to him a book talking about the planet of Human origins, Earth, and how it rotated around a single star, which changed the weather depending on the planet's position. Tommy couldn't fathom his planet having such sudden and drastic change in temperature, he wondered how his ancestors managed it so well.
Soon, the three suns were the highest in the sky they were ever going to be, the red and purple stars sitting in their familiar triangle position. Tucked into the collar of his shirt, Edward sat snugly at his neck, front arms out and swaying with the boy's jerky movements. After what Tommy thought to have been an hour, he was about finished and decided a break was in order.
"We're doing great, Edward," he said in a breathless gasp, swiping a hand over his sweat-drenched face, "we're almost done with the asteroids, and then we can move onto the garden! How about a water break?"
Walking over to the shed, he leaned his shovel against it and set the plush down gently onto the grass. He kneeled down next to a barrel filled with rainwater, and clapped a handful of it onto his sweaty forehead. The coolness of the water felt nice. He knew it was rather unsanitary to use rainwater straight from the barrel to cool off, Dream would have a fit if he knew Tommy was potentially compromising his health with contaminated water, especially since the boy knew he already had a weak constitution, but the Human was tired and too lazy to get clean water from inside the house. It's not like it would kill him or anything, the man was so dramatic sometimes.
He glanced at Edward, watching him from his spot in the grass, and winced. "Remember, don't tell Dream that I do this. You also shouldn't do this either, it's safer to grab filtered water from the–"
Boom!
A loud boom aggressively his words off. The sound shocked him, and he ended up accidentally getting the water cupped inside his tiny hands all over his lap instead. Thinking quickly, he grabbed Edward off the ground and tucked him under his arm, clapping his hands over his ears.
BOOM!!
Nine seconds later, a much louder resounding boom reached them, and it quite literally chattered his teeth and shook him to his core as the sound trembled through the ground at his feet. It was an unpleasant feeling, he hoped Benson was doing alright on his own.
Seconds later, the sound and movements ceased, and Tommy was able to see straight again. Then, he jumped up in excitement, grabbing Edward and playfully swinging him around.
"Dream's back! Dream's back!" The child shouted with joy, and he imagined that Edward smiled back at him, because Dream was back!!
The booms were familiar because they were the sounds he heard when Dream's spaceship would leave or enter the planet's ats-mos-feer. The first boom was quiet, but loud and unusual enough to be noticeable. The second boom was always the loudest, to the point where it left his vision blurry and ears ringing. Dream said it was because the sound was traveling from the sky towards the ground and made it shake, or whatever. Tommy wasn't sure how something he couldn't see could travel like that, but the alien wasn't usually wrong about anything, so he probably wasn't wrong about that either.
Tommy earnestly looked up into the sky. He found nothing, of course, but that only made the boy want to wriggle around some more. If his ship wasn’t in the sky, then that meant he had already landed on the ground! Dream was officially home!! He may have missed his birthday, but that was alright, because he was here now! Maybe one-hundred and seven days late, but he was here and that's all that mattered!
Then, the realization hit him like an asteroid banging into the house's outer shield layer– dread.
"Oh no," Tommy breathed. "Dream's back."
He was dreading Dream's return. Tommy's been slacking recently, and the boy knew it too. The kitchen wasn't clean, nor had he cleaned it in a long time, because nobody had been using it since Tommy didn't know how to cook. His toys were carelessly strewn about, sitting in the yard and around his bedroom floor. They were easy for Dream to trip over because the alien couldn't see the floor very well and he would get really upset at Tommy for having them out because he wasn't allowed to have his toybox unlocked when he wasn't home (and he had no idea that Tommy knew where the key was)! He also hasn't gotten around to pulling the weeds out of the garden this month, or doing this week's dishes!
And if Dream saw that he hadn't been doing enough around here to pull his weight, then that meant more basement time. Tommy hated basement time.
"Edward," he whispered down to the squishy thing, "Edward, we are in so much trouble."
He lifted Edward into the air in front of him, and the doll's head fell listlessly to the side.
"What do you mean, why?" Tommy repeated his question incredulously, "Edward, we haven't done any of the chores!"
He shook Edward, who's head bobbed at the motion. Tommy gasped.
"Don't nod! This isn't a good thing! We need to get those done right now!"
Tommy stopped shaking the doll, and his head sadly ducked forward to rest on his chest. The Human instantly felt bad.
"No, wait! Shhh! Don't cry!" Tommy hugged the plush to his chest, petting his head comfortingly. He didn't mean to make the toy cry, he never liked it when Dream yelled at him too, so he should have known better than to raise his voice. "I'm sorry, shhh! I didn't mean to yell. I'm just stressed. Just stressed, okay? I didn't mean it!"
He brought the plush up, and his head fell forward again. But instead of sadness this time, he saw forgiveness in his beady little eyes. Tommy sighed in relief.
"Thank-you," he told Edward sincerely. He could tell Edward was glad Tommy apologized. "We still gotta do the chores though! You'll help, right? Like you usually do?"
As Tommy jogged back towards the house, his original plans for the day forgotten. As he went, Edward's little head bobbed up and down, and the boy happily smiled at the plush before tucking him back into the collar of his shirt so he wouldn't get lost. He had maybe 50 minutes before Dream arrived home from his cool spaceship, and the thought made him both anxious and excited so much his hands shook in anticipation.
The first chore he did took him an agonizingly long time; it took two trips, but he gathered as many toys as he could grab in his small arms and dumped them into his toybox, which stood at the end of his mattress. Tommy grabbed the key for it, locking the box tight, before returning it back to the tippy-topmost part of Dream's work cabinet, which was filled with those strange bottles and chemicals he didn't think smelled very good up close. After that, he took the broom and did a quick sweeping of the kitchen floor and dusted off the countertops he hadn't touched at all in the past few weeks, and then practically threw all the dishes into the other sink to soak so he could at least pretend he was getting started on doing them.
He reluctantly told Edward goodbye and shoved him back into his treasure stash when he was finished, knowing Dream did not know about his existence, lest he get taken away. It was safer this way.
After that, already dressed appropriately for the outside, Tommy grabbed a smaller hand shovel. He figured he could call boulder removal done since he'd pretty much got rid of every one, so he moved onto the garden next. He kneeled down in the dirt, waiting in anticipation for the moment his best friend arrived home and saw him "working" diligently. He felt bad that he was basically lying to Dream about what he's been doing– but he figured it technically wasn't lying if he really did intend to work on gardening eventually, right?
(He duly noticed that more of his crops were dying, either not getting enough water or enough sunlight to thrive. He didn't know which, if any of the two, were the problem. He shoved away the immediate anxiety that whispered to him about how low his food was getting, and how low it would continue to get if Dream did not come home with more food soon. Rationing was difficult when Tommy got so hungry.)
So the boy waited patiently for Dream to come home, bare and scraped-up knees digging into the garden dirt.
And waited.
And waited…
… And slowly got more confused and worried. Wasn’t he usually here by now? How long had it been since his ship touched down?
Tommy looked up into the sky, where the suns had barely moved in the time he had run around since he heard the booms. He wasn’t expecting that much time to pass in his wait, and it hasn’t really been all that long, but he was still surprised and a little concerned to see that it had taken Dream even this long to arrive home after landing. The wait was almost unbearable for him, knowing he was so close now. What was keeping him? Did he need help? Was he hurt?
Unsurely, Tommy stood up. It wouldn’t harm anyone to meet his friend halfway, right? Just in case Dream really did need his help for something.
He could also see him sooner and bring him home faster! Yeah! That was a good plan! A hesitant second later, Tommy stumbled out of the dirt and made his way into the jumbled, azure confusion that was the forest. For anyone else, perhaps the jungle of blue trees and flora would have been confusing, but Tommy’s been living with Dream on this dwarf planet since he could remember. The maze of foliage was nothing for him to navigate through, and it was the same for his friend who's lived here even longer.
"Dream?" Tommy called out unsurely as he went. "If this is another shit joke, it isn't funny!"
No response. Not even a sign. Now he was getting really worried.
Maybe a ten minute walk from the house, where Tommy was thinking he would reach his friend halfway down the trail, Dream and his spaceship were still nowhere to be found. Strange– doesn't he usually park closer?
"Dreeeeam!" Tommy cried out again, just in case he missed him accidentally. Where the fuck was he?!
The man couldn't have gotten lost– Dream said his species was, like, really good at survival or something! They were also pretty good with memorization too, so it wouldn't make sense for Dream to not know where he was on his own planet. But Tommy had no idea what else the problem could be! This has never happened before!
"Dream! Answer me!!"
And then, he saw it. It was an unusual small flash of light, far off from the usual spot that caught his attention. Seeing it out of the corner of his eye, he stopped in his tracks and shut his mouth.
It was gone now, but the boy narrowed his eyes and searched again. Just where did it– there!
He could see it clearly now that he was looking for it, but between some of the leaves of the trees, Tommy saw what he was sure to be the reflection of sunlight against metal.
Could that be him? Could that be Dream?
Call it morbid curiosity, or perhaps even stupidity, but the boy edged closer to get a better look. That wasn’t where Dream usually landed his spaceship, but it was Dream’s planet, so he could land wherever he wanted. Maybe he landed over there instead?
"That's so weird," he muttered.
Tommy shuffled through the blue foliage of tall grass and big, low-hanging leaves. He shoved a branch out of his way and hopped over a boulder, peering past a tree and into the clearing where he spotted the gleaming of metal.
(Little did the boy know, the next few moments were going to be the beginning of what would become the biggest, most difficult, most greatest change of his life.)
Tommy gaped in shock at what he found. Oh.
Instead of finding Dream's ship sitting in the clearing, he peered up at the absolute monstrosity of metal before him.
That was not Dream's spaceship. He– Tommy barely had the words to describe why it wasn't, but that definitely wasn't Dream's spaceship.
Dream's spaceship was small and dark and round with a flat top, but sometimes it randomly creaked and leaked a bad smelling fluid from a pipe. It's scary for those reasons alone, but Tommy usually stayed away from it because it creeped him out and gave him funny feelings in his chest that made it hard to breathe. He tried to remember why he'd feel that way, but it only made his head hurt. He's told Dream about it before but he was always written off as being dramatic, so he learned to stop complaining early on.
This spaceship? It was sleek, but still really bulky, and in some places it was white with big pictures and red stripes on the side. It was so much bigger than Dream's spaceship. Hell, he's pretty sure the spaceship was bigger than his house!
So yeah. This was not Dream's spaceship.
The realization of the spaceship not being Dream’s made the boy freeze in place. If he only heard two booms, and there’s only one spaceship out here and it didn’t belong to Dream…
Then did that mean it wasn’t Dream who entered his planet’s sky bubble thingy?
Oh. Oh no.
That was very, very bad. Because if that was not Dream, then someone else was here on the planet with him, and that was dangerous! Dream said his spaceship was small because it was meant for only him to drive, so did that mean there were multiple unknown, dangerous, bloodthirsty aliens on this one?!
The thought made him shiver. Oh, stars. This was bad. This was really, really bad! It looked like the entrance to the ship was already open, so literally the ship's occupants could be anywhere on the planet, and Tommy wouldn't have known had he not gone looking for a spaceship in the first place!
What should he do? Tommy was Human. He knew how the rest of the galaxy saw him and his kind. If these strangers knew he was here… fuck, he was dead, end of story. They would tear him apart limb from limb, eat him alive, use his bones to make freaky weapons and his blood for powerful boosting potions, and enjoy every second of it, if what Dream told him was right! The only safe person he could go to for protection was Dream, as he was the only person in the galaxy who didn't hate humans and didn't want to use his guts and blood and stuff for any sick desire.
But Dream was not here to protect him this time. Tommy was truly, terribly, horribly all alone. Alone with them.
Tommy wanted to scream. Almost. He wished he brought Edward or Benson with him for support, but he also didn't want to make them panic too. But– But he didn't want to face these strangers alone either! He's never had to deal with something like this before, and he was alone and lost and he felt like he was going to burst into tears any second now!!
Whatever happened next, he could not get spotted, or he was dead.
A loud shout came from the ship. It made Tommy flinch, and he quickly ducked down to hide more amongst the grass. Despite the suddenness, the voice was light and smooth. Whimsical, like a song to the Human's ears. He couldn't tell what was being said, but he spotted enough movement within the ship from the open entrance to know that something was going on.
Another voice, responding from somewhere he didn't know, was deep and strained, almost guttural. It was like the complete opposite of the other voice, and it made Tommy feel itchy and uncomfortable. It reminded him of the way he would sound after he had to regurgitate food, and how his voice would crack and fail when he tried to talk. With a frown and a twinge of concern, he wondered if whoever was talking was in as much pain as he was when Tommy was going through that. Did he have to vomit recently?
Then, the boy fiercely shook his head. He shouldn't feel pity for a Human-eating monster! It would kill him the first chance it got!
Either way, he could only vaguely make out their words, the tones and sounds of their voices being unfamiliar and confusing. He… thinks they were talking something about boxes? An emergency refueling? But all of the fuel Dream had, he kept locked in his shed…
A pause in thought. Wait, oh no, were they going to steal Dream's spaceship fuel?! Did they know where that was?!
Before Tommy could think of doing anything else, like running back home to make sure Dream's shed and subsequent fuel supplies were completely locked up, something came down the ramp holding a giant, gray box. It was tall. Very tall, with weirdly bended legs. Very tall and very blue, it's shade just a bit lighter than the surrounding trees, and it had a long, spiny tail that whipped around behind it. It's eyes, where Tommy presumed it's face was, were wide open circles, completely round, black and unblinking. It reminded him of some of the birds around here, and how focused their eyes got when they spotted its prey.
In other words: an ugly fucker, it was. A dangerous, ugly fucker. Tommy shivered at the thought of being caught under it's predatory gaze.
The Human watched as a second creature walked down behind it, also holding a box. Maybe this was the owner of the itchy voice?
It also walked on two legs, but it wasn't as tall as the ugly one. It did not have a tail from what he could see, and its limbs were covered in long, draping green fabrics that looked very comfortable– Like a blanket! How fun!– and its face was paler than the other's, skin tone more closely resembling Tommy's own pallor. Similarly, its golden hair also matched his own head, though the color was slightly off. Its eyes, blue and bright and also rather familiar, blinked and flitted about the clearing, and…
And it… and…
It– Huh. Huh.
Tommy crept closer.
The boy watched as the alien dumped the box to the ground with a groaning sound, it's ten fingers stretching and wriggling in the air to relieve from the strain of lifting something heavy. The creature sat down, and it's feet, sticking out and away from the rest of its body, were attached to long, sturdy legs that bent midway.
The two creatures spoke to one another, the blue one with it's low, soothing tones, and the other with a rather– Even? Steady?– voice. It did not sound at all like Tommy's, but It–
He– It– He? It. It looked familiar.
Tommy would be a fool to not have noticed the similarities between him and the second alien. A head with his face shape, nose, and eyes. Four limbs that shared his hands and feet. A smile on lips that instinctively stretched wide, and the way it barked– no, the way it laughed at whatever the other just said. The way it bent backwards and stretched, the way it turned it's head in many directions, the way it simply blinked when the other didn't–
Tommy trembled, unsure if he should be horrified or intrigued. Because his first impulsive thought was too good to be true. Something else, something more uncanny had to have been going on here.
Because surely, that creature couldn't be Human. Surely, as the last Human alive, he could not have just stumbled upon another Human so easily. That was impossible. Sure, its appearance and movements were very similar to Tommy's own Human traits, but that didn't mean anything. Sure, it didn't act anything like how Dream acted either, but there were billions of lifeforms all across the galaxy, so not every creature out there is going to act exactly like Dream does.
Which, fuck. Yeah. These were actual people. Aliens. He almost forgot. They were not predator animals, they were sentient beings that had complex thoughts and minds; minds that probably intimately knew how to hunt down and tear a Human child apart. Fuuuuck.
Plus, they were just sitting there! If that creature were Human, it would be a very dead one by now. There's no way the blue one would have tolerated its presence. The Human would have been torn up ages ago.
Tommy shook his head to clear it. He didn't have time to dwell on this longer. What was he even doing here again? He needed to wait them out until they leave, or at least hold on until Dream gets back to shoo them off. He shouldn't risk being seen like this, otherwise he was doomed.
Quietly, he crept away, keeping a close eye on the two to make sure they didn't hear him or glance over in his direction. He nearly lost his breath as he backed hard into something solid, unwillingly emitting a small eep! from his mouth.
At first, Tommy froze up to make sure the aliens hadn't heard him, assuming he ran into a tree. Except, when Tommy didn't move away from it, the tree moved back instead, away from Tommy. He gasped and twisted around.
His tiny heart, already beating so very fast, nearly stopped as thick, tall legs, even taller than him, blocked his view. His gaze trailed up–
and up–
and up–
– and it eventually landed on a furry, pink face. It had two long, sharp teeth sticking out from its bottom lip, and pointed ears that were swiveled in Tommy's direction. The suns were blocked out by the blue canopy above them, casting the creature in a dark, cool shadow. It's body loomed over the boy, spine curving in a way that was unnatural and uncomfortable for a Human's, and it's hands were massive, bigger than his face! It's eyes, red and menacing, were mere pinpricks that seemed to glow as they took in his shaking form. They widened, it's jaw also dropping open as the two of them stared each other down, none willing to make the first move.
"A Human child?" It uttered in that deep, guttural tone.
Tommy shrieked.
He didn't hear the shouts of alarm coming from behind him in the clearing, nor did he focus on whatever the alien was saying. He only saw the clawed hand that was coming down towards him, poised and ready to grab him and tear him apart.
It was as if a hidden instinct kick-started into overdrive right then, and Tommy finally unfroze. The boy ducked away from the creature, scraping his knees and hands on the twisted roots of the trees below them, and he booked it away. He heard a shout, no, a roar from behind answering his movements. His breath stuttered in his little chest in response, but the sound only made his little legs work harder to get him away from the danger. Fear and heart in overdrive, his thoughts raced through his head.
It's mad, it's so mad!! It knows I'm Human! It's chasing me, I have to get away! It's going to eat me! I'm going to die!
He didn't hear when the voices faded from range, nor when it all finally became quiet, save for the leaves and grass crunching under his feet. He didn't know how long it took for him to get back home. He wasn't sure if the reason his breaths were so quick and shallow was more because of the exercise, or for the way his fear restricted any more air from reaching his lungs. What he did know was the pure relief of seeing his house's door, and finding nothing out in the trees after a quick glance back.
Tommy slammed the door shut behind him, slid down underneath the table, and sobbed as he tried to catch his breath.
Tommy woke up under the dining room table the next morning. His throat felt sore, his eyes were puffy and itchy, and Dream still wasn't home. The thought of that nearly put him into hysterics again, breath hitching and lungs hiccupping for a second. Nearly. Because Dream wasn't here, but the creepy, dangerous strangers from yesterday were.
Quietly, trying to collect himself, Tommy snuck out from underneath the table, Benson and Edward tucked under each arm. A glance out the front window told him nothing had changed outside, no weird pink or blue aliens in sight. He didn’t see anything suspicious, but that didn't mean it was safe to go out just yet.
Nervously, he sucked on his bottom lip. What should he do? Wait inside for Dream? Get rid of these people himself somehow? But how? He was so small, and they were so– so big!
Tommy almost whined at the thought of how big and scary they all were, but he quickly stopped himself. Dream said only little kids whined and cried when something they don't like happens, and there was nobody home to comfort him anyway. He was completely alone, so he had to be a big kid right now.
He was ten, for goodness sakes! He had to get it together!
"Don't worry, guys," he whispered to Benson and Edward, "I'll protect you. No freaky aliens are going to eat you under my watch."
At his words, Benson and Edward seemed to relax a little more in his arms. Tommy smiled at that, glad he could bring the two some semblance of comfort. He wished Dream was here to protect him like he was protecting them, but this would have to be enough for now.
Sniffing and clearing his stuffy throat, Tommy meandered over to the bathroom. He carefully placed his friends on the countertop, climbed up after them and flipped the lamp on to look at himself in the mirror.
Tommy looked sick. His eyes were red and puffy from how much he had cried the day before. His hair looked thin and brittle, his skin pale and sticky with sweat despite the cool air, and moving around was a little harder than it usually was for him. His fingers were almost purple-ish and shook badly, but that was normal. The Human knew he was sick already, that was why Dream kept him on this dwarf planet in the first place, but even he could see he looked sicker than he usually did.
He felt bad right now, but it would pass. He only looked worse than he actually was. Tommy was fine. Were his cheeks and eyes a little more sunken in than the last time he looked at himself? Sure, and usually he would be eating more, but food was low right now and he had to wait for Dream to come back with more. It was a sacrifice, but not one he was unfamiliar with.
"Don't worry guys, I'm okay," he said, eyes not leaving the reflection. He didn't want to check if his friends believed him or not.
He hoped Dream got home faster. As of this morning, he's been gone for about one-hundred and eight days. That's a lot of days.
Tommy sighed and ran a hand through his hair, frowning as he watched his reflection do the same. The sight of his hair, pale, brittle, and nearly white, reminded him of something he saw the day before.
Namely, that one alien. That one that oddly looked a lot Human like he did.
Tommy silently compiled a list together, eyes trailing down his own form as he did. Light hair? Check. Blue eyes? Check. Pale skin? A little darker than he was from what he could tell, but yeah, check. Hands with ten fingers? That one was a maybe, he couldn't remember how many fingers the alien had. It– He?– It was also taller than Tommy by a fair amount, but he was also only ten, so it would make sense if he were still smaller than a fully grown Human too.
He couldn't tell anything else about the alien because of it's baggy clothing (or was it a blanket?) wrapped around it's body, but the Human child knew he saw two arms, two legs, and no tail. Disturbingly enough, Tommy also had two arms, two legs and no tail.
Tommy bit his lip unsurely, and the reflection across from him did the same. He wasn't… there was a chance that the alien was Human, but how possible was that, actually? How likely were they to stumble across each other, if they were the last in the entire galaxy? It had to be extremely unlikely, right? So then was it– he?– actually Human?
No. It couldn't be. That wouldn't make sense. Because he was the last. Right?
(A part of him wondered why he was even fighting this, if this very moment was something he's been wanting his entire life– to not be alone anymore.)
Dream wouldn't lie to him about that. Dream was his best friend and guardian, he had no reason to lie! If the alien said Tommy was the last Human, then he was the last Human. Simple as that.
(Tommy also thought Dream wouldn't have left him alone on-planet for one-hundred and eight days, either.)
… Well, hypothetically speaking, if he wanted to know that badly, Tommy would have to be very sure before confirming anything to be Human (plus, he could use the distraction).
"How can you tell if someone's Human? I ask this for science, of course," Tommy asked his audience; that is, his two friends and his reflection. "Sure, I'm Human, but it's not like I'm an expert or anything. I don't know anything about Humans except for myself!"
His squishy friends sat in silence, seemingly also stumped at the question. They themselves were not Human, so obviously they were just as lost on the subject as he was.
"Forget I asked," Tommy muttered sadly, turning away. Benson was jostled, and it's tiny body softly landed on the Human's leg. Obviously, it felt bad. At that, the boy was quick to add on, "Oh no, it's okay, Benson! I didn't expect you guys to know anything anyway, we can figure this out, don't worry!"
Tommy thought some more. How does one tell if one is Human? Probably… science and shit. Classi-fi-whats-its, or whatever. Super smart words about Human bodies and stuff. Dream liked using big words Tommy never understood when talking about Human an-atom-ony, or when he was pouring through his books. It made Tommy feel really stupid sometimes though, especially when he got laughed at for it.
Tommy paused. Science. Super smart words. Human bodies. Dream.
"That's it!" Tommy hopped off the counter, snatching Benson and Edward up. "Follow me, fellas!"
The boy paced out the bathroom and avoided the basement door, stopping at Dream's bookcase located in the living room. He glared up at how tall it was, and spotted a familiar book on the top shelf.
Tommy carefully placed his friends down and went back to grab a stool from the kitchen. It was heavy, so he had to push it over to get it where he needed it. He carefully climbed up, getting up on his toes as he reached as high as he could to grab one of Dream's science books. The stool teetered under his weight.
"Almost… there…"
He breathlessly cheered as his fingers brushed against the book he was looking at. Slowly, he inched it closer as well as he could with his fingertips.
And then the stool gave out beneath him. For a second, Tommy felt weightless, giving his heart a moment to process and drop along with his body.
Then, his back landed unforgivingly against the wood, head snapping forward as his skull painfully hit the floor with a sharp thud. He saw stars, vision blacking out as miniature explosions filled the blank space behind his eyelids, and all the air he had in his lungs seemed to leave him all at once with a gasp.
A deep, startled exhale, the boy barely missing from biting his tongue off as his lungs fluttered helplessly inside his chest–
A pause. Long. Almost agonizing.
– followed by a shallow, squeaky inhale a moment later. And then another. Short, awful gasps were like a fish's desperate plea for water as moisture gathered in his eyes.
All Tommy could do for the moment was lay there and hope for the pressure to finally release its grip on his chest.
Holy shit, that hurt.
"I'm okay," he wheezed out anyway, for his little friends that he could still see in his blurry vision, "It's okay, I'm okay."
Slowly, carefully, he rolled over onto his stomach, huffing a deep breath as he eyed the book beside him, pages now open from the fall it took. It took quite the fall, but the book was down now, so at least there was that. A couple more had fallen in the shuffle, one landing open to a bookmarked page that held a picture of what Tommy remembered to be a Human heart, cut into six separate pieces. He ignored it, crawling over and carefully sitting up.
He reached for the original book he's been looking for. Dream hadn't touched it in a good while, evident by how dusty the pages were. The book held a lot of cool, science-y facts that his friend would sometimes flip through when he was younger to help take care of him, but there hadn't been much reason to look through it anymore beyond that.
Dream himself proclaimed to be an avid expert on the Human body, accurately describing all its bits and pieces whenever Tommy asked– which parts were tougher to cut than others, which parts bled more, which parts sold for more in the intergalactic market, casual stuff like that. Once the boy had tried to look at the pictures to gather some semblance of information since he didn't know how to read like his friend did, but it didn't make much sense without the needed context the words provided.
"I wanted… to find…" Tommy said out loud, voice drifting off as he searched, "I wanted to find the people… picture, thingies."
He wanted to find the ink pictures of the Humans, all labeled with big words and spread out for easy reading. Tommy thinks there was a specific word for whatever the pictures were called, but he forgot it. Whatever they were, he found them near the last dozen pages– from what he remembered Dream telling him, the two pictures were of a Human female and Human male.
Obviously, Tommy was male, so he shared a lot of features with the male picture. But he knew that already, having looked at it before. He was here for something– someone else this time.
Taking a quick look at the pages again, he reached back in his memory to recall how the one alien looked– the one who looked a lot like he did, weirdly enough, who in his head he subconsciously began to refer to as a Maybe-Human creature.
For one, the Maybe-Human looked as tall and wide as the picture here did. In fact, it- he???- it's own body fit the picture much better than Tommy's body did, interestingly enough. And just as he noted earlier, the Maybe-Human had eyes and a nose and a mouth like Tommy and the picture did, as well as two arms and two legs.
Unfortunately, the creature's feet were covered so he couldn't tell if it had any toes, and Tommy couldn't remember seeing any hands with fingers either. How annoying, Tommy really needed to know this critical information, but of course things couldn't be that simple for him.
There was another slight issue with these pictures, Tommy realized the longer he stared. The creature Tommy saw had long hair, tied back but still brushing it's shoulders. The only picture that had long hair was the female one. The male one had shorter hair ending above the ears, like Tommy's own hair.
That led to another question. Was the creature female, because of it's long hair? Is that how that works? According to what the pictures implied, it was… But no! Tommy's hair grew too! Dream cut it shorter every few months or so, so that wouldn't make sense–
Tommy gasped as the thought hit him. Oh no, did that mean the Maybe-Human did not have someone to cut it's hair like Tommy did? Don't it's friends care if it's hair grows too long?! That's so sad…
"If your hair grew, I'd cut it for you," the Human quickly reassured his little friends, still sitting where he last placed them on the floor. He could tell they greatly appreciated the sentiment, even though hair cutting wasn't necessary for them. Tommy distantly wondered why their fuzzy hair didn’t grow at all, but he tossed the thought aside. Now wasn’t the time.
Okay, so that left out hair regarding sex. Maybe it had to do with voice? Tommy's voice was pretty high-pitched, but the other's wasn't. Did female Humans have lower voices than males? That was… pretty cool, he had to admit. But wait, did that mean Tommy was stuck with his voice forever?! Fuck, he hoped not. That would suck. It was so squeaky, and on multiple occasions he'd been told that it was annoying to listen to, so he had to be quieter. Tommy didn't want to be annoying forever, he just couldn't help it…
Unfortunately, there wasn't really a good way to test this theory besides asking the Maybe-Human itself about it. But no way was he just gonna waltz up to it while the risk of it not being Human was still a very real possibility!
(Though, did it really matter if the Maybe-Human was male or female? He supposed not, but it would be nice to know. Either way, this all of course depends on if the alien actually was Human.
One thing at a time, Tommy, he reminded himself.)
First, he had to prove the alien was even Human. From there, he could decide what to do– such as staging a rescue. Somehow.
"Do you think I could rescue the Maybe-Human if it was Human?" Tommy asked aloud.
The squishy toys only stared at him. The air felt doubtful.
Tommy scoffed at their looks. "Wow, rude. I think I could sneak it out and hide it under my bed. There's lots of space down there!"
The toys only continued to stare at him, but it felt less judgmental this time. They knew that Dream was unable to see the ground because of how his species was built, so the other aliens probably couldn't look at the ground or under the bed either. The Human grinned at them.
"I know, I'm very smart." Even if Dream didn't think so sometimes.
Nodding to himself, he added a new objective to his mental to-do list. The first was to wait for Dream to come home, of course. His newly added objective was to watch the weird aliens and their even weirder spaceship for anything strange, and to find out whether the Maybe-Human was Human or not.
It was a daunting task, but it was one Tommy was willing to do. Plus, if he was patient about it, then eventually Dream would come home, and he could help complete the mission! They could rescue the Human together!
It was settled then. Operations: Spy and Rescue the Human was underway!
If the weird alien was Human, that is. He should probably check up on that part first. Then he could stage a rescue!
He was going to be so cool.