"Excuse me, Ma'am?"

"Yes Dream, what is it?"

"I, uh... Was wondering what your opinion was on vampires."

~~~~~~

Dream groaned, rolling over on his side in his bed.

~~~~~~

"Oh, those filthy demons? Child, make sure to stay away from them. Even though you're two grades ahead and are very intelligent, don't let that mess with your mind, you're still only a child and can't find against those things."

~~~~~~

Gosh, he was so darn close! He had the book in his own two hands, he had even read a page of it! It had all of the answers he needed!

~~~~~~

"I wasn't thinking about that..."

"Dream, dear, their awful scum of the earth that don't belong here. Just go back to reading."

"But-"

"I'm busy."

~~~~~~

God, was he such a failure or what?

He couldn't even get a single book.

Dream sighed, sitting up as he sniffed. He had dedicated his life to his brother, and he might've finally found the answers! That book was the answer, he knew it!

And of course he screwed up.

Like everything in his life.

He made his brother disappear, he made his classmates hate him for being smart, heck, even the teachers thought he was a real teachers pet!

Dream sucked in a breath, standing up slowly. He sometimes had these moments where he hated everything about himself, everything that he has done and was thinking of eventually doing.

You'll never find Nightmare.

There's a reason he ran away.

You can't do anything right.

No, Dream couldn't let his mind do this again. He'd end up crying himself to sleep again, like he had done multiple nights before. He'd end up clutching a pillow as he sobbed, insults hurling through his head.

Now wasn't the time to get distracted, though, he had to accept that he screwed up somehow and had to find a way to fix it. But, with these thoughts he wasn't going to make any progress, so it was best if he just went out into a walk.

He couldn't focus with these thoughts.

~~~~~~

Dream walked down the stairs to the floor below the one he was on, Sci leading them while Cross was in the back, a stack of books in his hands as he sluggishly walked down the stairs.

"Oh, more books," Cross muttered as he glanced onto a table.

"Yeah, Blue and I grabbed all of the books that had no titles or had anything to do with magic an powers," Sans explained, gesturing to the pile on top of the table, "Some of these probably have never been read before, we grabbed everything we could find."

"That means more reading, I guess," Dream said.

"If anyone gets a headache, just let me know," Sci said, "As much as I'd like to push through these without stopping to get them done as fast as possible, pain could make it harder to focus, meaning slower reading and more time spent here then wanted. So, speak up so somebody else can heal you."

"The Magnificent Blue does not get headaches, Mweh heh heh!" Blue announced, standing one foot onto his chair as he stuck an arm into the air, a book inside of it, "Let us do this, Jury members!"

"And Sans," Sans added, "And Cross."

"I'm just supposed to be carrying books," Cross said nervouslyn glancing at Dream and Sci.

"You can read, right?"

"Well, yeah, b-"

"So you can help us, right?"

"I guess, if it's ok."

"That'd be helpful and beneficial," Sci said, "Just don't tell the King what you did, we don't need him to find out we went behind his back and you know... Let this happen."

"I won't."

"Good."

They all sat down at the same table, Cross setting down the books he was carrying onto thr pile of books that was already on the table, making the pile as large as the table itself. Then, they all shuffled to sit down, Cross having to pull up another chair since there wasn't enough at the table. Blue had offered to go get one himself, but Cross didn't mind.

"Oh, Cross, I must apologize for not realizing that you never had sugar before, I thought everyone had access to the brilliance of it, but I guess not," Blue said.

"Oh, no, I shouldn't had eaten too much, it's fine," Cross said.

"Well, I'll start with less sugar, if you wouldn't mind me making you breakfast!"

"Are you sure? I wouldn't want to be a bother."

"I love cooking! I always have extras, so I give them to some of the staff in the castle, so having another close friend who could give me feedback would be great!"

"Well, I wouldn't mind if you didn't use so much sugar..."

"The Magnificent Blue will make sure to take into consideration your low tolerance for sugar!"

After a thanks from Cross, the conversation had closed off from there, everyone quickly getting absorbed into their books. Eventually, Geno and Ink had joined them them the third floor, both of them pulling up chairs. Edge joined last, the stench of smoke clinging to his bones, which no one bothered to comment on.

"What's this old thing?" Dream had asked, grabbing the dust covered book.

He blew on the cover, causing dust to explode up into his face, causing him to close his eyes and cough.

"Called a book," Geno said.

"But it doesn't have a title, or anything on the cover," Dream said.

"Neither do most of these," Sci said, holding up another title-less book.

"Ok, geez," Dream said.

He opened up the first page and noticed that the words weren't printed out like normal books, instead they were written out by hand and pencil. The hand writing looked rushed, not to mention sloppy. But still readable, at least to Dream.

The first page had his eye sockets widening, blinking at the information.

This was... Amazing!

The first page seemed to indicate it was written by a vampire itself, naming themselves Horror, saying that they had been turned two days ago, at least by the time they had written out this. And they said they had met other vampires, which was a chance he had met Nightmare.

"Ink, I need you to take this to the castle and have it copied immeadiatly," Dream said, "You can come back and pick us up once it's been copied and put in a safe location."

"Is it that important?" Ink asked, standing up.

"Yeah, it is, it looks pretty promising, and I don't want to lose it!" Dream said, "Just go, we'll keep looking."

"Yeah, sure," Ink said, speed-walking away from the table.

~~~~~~

Before Dream knew it, he was outside of the castle, climbing into a carriage and telling them to send him to the outskirts of town.

"Sure thing," The human male said in the front seat, accepting the gold in the Jury's hand and turning back towards the dirt road.

It only took around five minutes for them to get there, Dream hopping out into the mud, feeling the cool temperature against his usually warm boots.

"I'll be back from my walk," Dream said to him before walking off into the woods of dead trees.

This was a small preserved part of land, which some high class monsters tried to replant some trees so the air wasn't constantly full of other smells, such as death and misery. It had worked for awhile, until the trees eventually died due to the terrible conditions they were forced to live with.

It still was a place good for walks, though.

The trees were all bent and rotting, Dream stepping over their remains left and right. It was a good distraction for him, to keep jis mind at ease, and more calmer than earlier.

The air was stale, making Dream slightly gag. It only took a few more minutes before he found his usual sitting log, where he would ponder in peace without destroying his low self confidence.

It was his go to spot during stressful times.

So, he was there a lot.

He sat down there, the wood creaking under his weight. He was upset at the circumstances, how when he had arrived back at the castle, Ink somehow had the completely wrong book.

He knew what he read.

It was a vampire book, a good one at that!

The others didn't doubt him, they were just confused on what happened. Ink said the book looked the same the whole way back, he wasn't sure what had happened.

So, that meant Dream must've given him the wrong book.

But he knew he had given Ink the exact book he was reading before, so this didn't make any sense.

Maybe he just misread it for what he wanted to read.

But either way, he believed that he had screwed up somehow.

How was the question.

"People shouldn't be in the woods, even if you don't need air to breath," A voice chirped.

A skeleton was standing next to a large dead tree, one of their arms pressed against the bark for support. It was Killer, who was on a wall of his own, since Nightmare and Horror had left for a mission awhile ago, and he wasn't one who liked to stay inside very much.

"You're here too, that doesn't make a difference," Dream pointed out.

"Heh, sorry, I just didn't expect to see a high class member out here, it's kinda throwing me off," Killer said, pointing at his shoes, "Especially since your nice clothes are covered in mud."

"It's fine, I can always wash them myself."

"Do you mind if I take a seat?"

"No, not at all."

The vampire took a seat next to him, crossing his legs together as hr glanced up at the sky.

"It's sad, you can barely even see the blue of the sky anymore," He sighed, "It's just too polluted."

"It is, I enjoyed looking at the sky before," Dream muttered.

"Something wrong?" Killer asked, noticing his expression as he glanced over.

"Yeah, I messed up for all of my life," Dream muttered, running a hand over his skull.

"You're a high class man, I doubt that," Killer said.

"I don't care about the gold, I just wanted to find a way to have more access to power to help this world, that's why I worked so hard to get to my position!" Dream groaned, "But now I'm just stuck, being controlled like a puppet to the King. It's sickening. I can't even really help anyone, I can barely even give away good donations."

"You're trying to help us lower class?" Killer asked, playing off as a servant.

"Yeah, but I'm not doing any good at it," Dream sighed.

"The point is you're trying to do something, that counts," Killer said, "I've seen some people who just play along out of fear, and some that become like him. The point is that you try, right?"

"Heh, didn't think about it that way," Dream said after a moment of thinking, "Thanks."

"Well, I'll go now, looks like you had some support," Killer said, standing up.

"Oh!" Dream said, quickly standing up after him, "I... I want to say thank you, I usually don't show my problems to people, so thanks for the help. Even though us upper classes are considered jerks sometimes, it's nice to have help."

"No problem," Killer said, waving giidbye as he started to walk away, "Have a good day!"

"You too!" Dream called after him, waving goodbye with a soft smile on his face.

What a nice guy.

《》《》《》

I just noticed I have over 1K views, and we're only this far into the book, I haven't even intoduced another big part of the books conflicts yet, geez.

But hey, that's pretty cool! Thanks guys!

School hasn't been too hard yet, but it's only been a few days, I haven't gotten any real assignments yet, so we'll see. Hopefully a constant schedule!

And if ya wanna see what Lust looks like in his dress, a fabulous person named JustCallMeGoldie drew him! Here is their drawing!

One last thing, WHY IS WATTPAD DRUNK?