Even after the visitation of two other people, Mexican Dream and Drista, they'd only livened up Tommy's mood for a short while, and after they were gone, Tommy quickly grew sad again.

The next morning Tommy awoke to find a hole worn through in his shoe, which was slightly damp from the rain, drizzling down in soft sheets that seemed to pelt like angry needles nonetheless. Even the weather wouldn't spare Tommy, not even for a reason of pity.

He sighed, sliding his shoes on anyways and wincing at the rough gravel underneath his foot. He would get used to it, he told himself. Even if his skin didn't grow a callus, he would get used to it. He could craft new shoes anyways.

But what is the use of doing so? Tommy thought to himself. He found that he couldn't answer the question.

His stomach rumbled, and it twisted and tightened inside of him, but he merely put his hand on his stomach and sighed. Despite his rumbling hunger, he didn't have an appetite. He would get used to it.

He stood slowly, staring out at the world around him, watching the drizzling rain, the gloomy sky, the hidden sun, the sparse and unpopulated landscape. He couldn't live on in such a way. Soon, he knew... it would all be over, in one way or another.

In the meantime, however, he didn't have a choice.

Tommy made his way to Logstedshire and his eyes glanced over the board of his to do list. He'd barely done any of them, and couldn't find the heart to do any of them. He didn't know what he wanted to do.

Entering the house, he didn't even glance around before uncovering the secret entrance to his chest room and descending down the ladder. He took out of his few pictures of Tubbo and sighed, scanning through them and recalling with a sharp bite the memories. Even if he wasn't really Tubbo's friend anymore... he couldn't just get rid of those memories. Despite everything, they were still his memories, and they were precious to him. When he left... Tommy would take them with him, whether in death or in person. That he was sure of.

Tommy knew it wasn't likely that he could rise up against Dream. In death, he didn't want his things to be looted, either, so he would keep them, hidden, safe, also in case he did rise up against Dream. Just like he used to, Tommy recalled with a smile that was quickly wiped away by the bitter sting of time.

"Just like we used to." Tommy whispered to himself, his voice shaky and uncertain even to himself.

Even if it wasn't much, that was something he could cling to. He would gather his best things and store them in the chest room, on the off chance that someday he would be able to escape the prisonous fields he had been set in. It was something, at least, for him to do that day.

Tommy gathered together all of his best ores and minerals from all of his chests, scattered throughout his new home in the empty fields (he smiled bitterly to himself when he caught himself thinking that way), and stored them all in that secret chest room. After ruffling through the barrels in Logstedshire, he happened upon a couple of handfuls of blue, which he gathered up in his hands, staining his skin.

I haven't seen Ghostbur in so long, Tommy thought to himself. Even he's abandoned me.

Tommy chuckled self-deprecatingly. Everyone's abandoned me... except for Dream.

Finally, reluctantly, he ate a bowl of mushroom stew to restore his hunger bar and regain his health, but even so, it was tasteless and dull. He couldn't live on like this, Tommy told himself over and over again. He didn't have a future there. What point was there of continuing to stay? He didn't have a future... anywhere.

Where was Dream, Tommy wondered. Even despite the fact that Dream took away and blew up his things, even despite the fact that... Dream was the one who had put Tommy in this position in the first place... Tommy missed him. He missed his only friend.

Tommy made several trips around his new home and stored everything he found of value in the chest room. When he took a pause from his work, he sighed and leaned against the wall of his little house in Logstedshire. He didn't know what to do. To survive like this, to maintain the status quo, even though it, factually, was the easiest option, was too difficult for Tommy to do. So what would he do? What could he do? He could run. But why would he run? He had Dream. Dream clearly cared about him. He had nothing, nothing else other than Dream's friendship. Nothing at all.

Tommy wouldn't do anything, not yet. In the meantime... he could get new shoes. That was something he could do. But... he didn't need shoes anyways. What purpose did he have for shoes?

Where was Dream? Tommy checked the list of people on the server, and was surprised to see Dream online as well.

Well, then, where is he? Why hasn't he come to see me?

Smoothing back a strand of hair from his forehead, he frowned when he found it tangled and messy. When, he wondered, was the last time he'd looked in a mirror? He couldn't even remember how he used to live. His life in exile was now... normal.

Tommy stood slowly. When Dream came, he would need to get some armor to... let Dream blow up. If Tommy didn't have armor on him when Dream came, then Dream would be upset. The irrationality of the thought wouldn't strike him until much later, and instead he dug into his storage of iron in his chest room and crafted a full set of armor with the limited iron he had left. For Dream's friendship, Tommy must've convinced himself, this was worth it.

Slowly donning the armor, he felt with awareness the weight of the cold iron weighing on his shoulders and sitting on his body. To fight back... it had always been a possibility. But how could he do such a thing? And to go far away... it had also been a possibility. But how could he do such a thing, either? Dream cared far too much, and to betray Dream like that, that wasn't something Tommy could bear with himself in order to do.

Tommy missed L'Manberg. In his new home... it was so far away from his old home, and to be so far away, it hurt Tommy. Crouching at the top of the hill, with a disc in his jukebox, he stared out over the water, listening to the quiet and somber tune. It was then when he spotted Dream, and Tommy didn't immediately rush to take the disc out and put it in his ender chest. It was, after all... just a disc.

But no, it would never be just a disc. Tommy removed it from the jukebox and put it in his ender chest with swift movements as Dream ascended the hill.

"Hey," Tommy greeted with a smile.

"Hey," Dream answered with a friendly tone. "How's it going?"

"Really... yeah," Tommy answered, avoiding actually answering by deflecting the question back to Dream. "How are you?"

"Good," Dream replied cheerfully.

"Do you want to help me finish the tower over there," Tommy pointed. "I've been building a little tower. I think that might be something interesting to do today."

"Sure," Dream responded.

"Thanks," Tommy smiled gratefully. Dream still hadn't asked for Tommy's armor. Tommy decided not to bring it up and instead headed towards the forest. At worst, Tommy could always just dig a hole himself if Dream had forgotten and have Dream blow it up.

"I've got some logs," Dream offered quickly.

"Oh, really?" Tommy slowed, twisting around to look at Dream.

"Yeah," Dream shrugged. "Just a stack, though."

Tommy and Dream started up the hill, climbing up to the top of the tower to resume work.

"It's nice to see you here," Tommy offered. It was true, Tommy realized.

"It's nice visiting you," Dream returned. "How tall do you want the tower to be?"

Tommy felt happy having some company. This friend wouldn't abandon him, he knew. "As tall as it can go, I guess." Tommy answered.

"We need some more logs," Tommy said. After building only a couple of layers of the tower, their stack had already run out. They harvested some more from the neighboring trees, chatting aimlessly along the way.

"Let's look in Logstedshire." Dream offered.

"Sure," Tommy answered, when he suddenly remembered with a jump of his heart that he had forgotten to cover up the hidden entrance to the chest room.

When they got there, Tommy thought quickly. "Why don't you look in the barrels, and I'll go into the house to find something?"

"Alright." Dream said amicably and began rifling through. Tommy knew there wasn't any in the barrels, since he'd looked through them earlier, but he needed to quickly seal up the chest room before it was discovered by Dream. He quickly retrieved the block he'd used to cover up the ladder leading down to the chest room and covered up the entrance. Guilt spread through him, spoiling his mood and stretching out the edges of his fingers.

It isn't a big deal, Tommy tried to convince himself and moved on, stepping outside to harvest some mushroom soup from the mooshroom he'd been gifted.

"Well," Dream seemed to suddenly remember something and took out his shovel, "Tommy, put your armor in the hole."

Dream dug two blocks down, and must've hit stone because Tommy heard the sound of stone breaking underneath a pickaxe. When Tommy looked around, he didn't see Dream.

"Where did you go?" Tommy was in the midst of asking the question when he saw Dream's nametag underneath the house and heard the sound of a chest opening.

The silence was stifling, like it was squeezing his chest together, or perhaps it was his own panic when Dream continued to say nothing.

"D-Dream?" Tommy finally said. Inching his way around the stairs, his horrible suspicion was further confirmed. The cobblestone walls of his chest room had been exposed by the hole in the ground, and Dream stood there, looking at the contents of a chest he had opened.

For a couple of seconds, neither of them moved. Then, Dream looked up at Tommy with an unreadable, severe look.

"Um, Dream?" Tommy started, taken aback by the strange expression on Dream's face and slightly afraid. "Are you okay? Do you want me to...?"

Dream said nothing before placing two pieces of TNT and lighting them with a swift flaming arrow. Panicked, Tommy jumped down and had time only to retrieve the pictures from the chests before the TNT exploded. In close succession, the first destroyed the chests, leaving the items floating on the ground. The second explosion destroyed the floating items, leaving behind merely a crater, some blocks, and Dream with his deadly calm expression. The rest Dream drenched in lava, leaving nothing at all behind.

"Dream..." Tommy felt the need to apologize, but didn't know what to say.

"Tommy," Dream said, no emotion in his voice, just pure command, "drop all of your stuff."

"All of it?" Tommy said, hoping he was hearing it wrong. "No."

"All of it."

"No," Tommy panicked. Dream now wanted even more. Was this his new price for visiting Tommy in exile?

"Look, I'll drop my armor," Tommy said, digging a hole and dropping all of his iron armor, hoping it would be enough to appease Dream.

"Tommy," Dream said severely, and immediately Tommy froze, looking up at Dream, pleading to the heavens above that this wouldn't be the breaker of their relationship. Without Dream, what would Tommy do?

"You hid chests from me." Dream stated. "You hid chests full of stuff underneath your base so that I wouldn't take it."

"No," Tommy backed up, afraid, pleading with Dream now. "Look, you can blow up my armor. I'll throw my sword in there too."

"No," Dream said with a chilling smile. "Everything in your inventory."

Tommy didn't know what to say, and he stared at Dream, his eyes welling with tears he didn't dare shed.

"But those are all of my things," Tommy pleaded.

Dream's eyebrow arched a centimeter. "Why don't you get in the hole, then?"

Tommy was frightened, and finally obeyed. "I'm really sorry." He tried to apologize, unsure of what exactly it was he was apologizing for. "I didn't think that it was... making a..." He couldn't finish the sentence. Everything was in the hole now, except for pictures, which he'd hidden.

"But I thought it would've been fine," Tommy said, but the excuse sounded weird and frail even to his ears. Dream merely placed a piece of TNT on the top of the hole, and lighting it in the same way he'd lit the TNT that had blown up his chest room, let it fall and explode, destroying almost all of Tommy's possessions.

"I'm really sorry." Tommy said again. Tommy could've sworn he felt the explosion rock the ground and raise the hair on his arms. Dream moved past Tommy, and Tommy quickly moved aside for Dream, taking a couple of despairing steps towards the hole, peering down to see if even one thing was salvageable... but there was nothing. It was all gone.

Dream said nothing, merely placing another piece of TNT, and when Tommy saw Dream aiming the flaming arrow, he immediately ran across the space between him and destroyed the TNT, narrowly avoiding being hit by it as well.

Dream looked up at Tommy with a deadly gaze.

"Dream, I'm so sorry." Tommy frantically apologized. "I just... I couldn't... I don't know. I'm so sorry."

Dream merely placed more TNT, setting fire to all of them and watching them blow up. Tommy was thrown back against the walls of Logstedshire and scrabbled to get away, but Dream held him there with his words.

"Come here and watch." Dream looked out of Logstedshire and seemed to change his mind. "Come to the tent, come here."

Tommy turned, watching Dream's steps, and rushing after him, only to see Dream place a piece of TNT and light it up before backing out of the tent.

"My ender chest!" Tommy cried. He stumbled down, tripping and scraping his cheek against the rough texture of the newly formed crater. He scrabbled back to his feet and gathered up the remaining things. Tommy looked back at Dream, wondering how it was possible that there wasn't a single ounce of regret or remorse on Dream's face, but Dream was already on to the next target of his cold angered outrage.

"I think it's time for you to start over." Dream said with an almost lofty air. He easily broke one block of his nether portal, and Tommy heard the sound, like shattering glass, as the purple shimmering portal disappeared, cutting him off from the bridge he'd built.

"I thought that we were friends," Dream said, even though he didn't sound particularly hurt.

"But we are!" Tommy cried. "You're my best friend!"

Dream laughed to himself. "No," he said, sounding rather convinced. "You were lying to me."

"Why would I be lying to you?" Tommy chased after Dream.

Dream smiled patronizingly, as if not believing that Tommy couldn't understand this. "You hid things in a chest, knowing that those were things that I wouldn't have wanted you to have. You hid it in a way that I would never find it. The only reason I found it was because I was mining a hole to tell you to drop your stuff, and then I saw chests."

"I did drop my armor in a hole! I did!" Tommy protested, staring at the damage done.

Dream merely looked at Tommy before moving into the house. Tommy scrambled after Dream, desperately destroying the TNT before Dream could light it.

"Stop it!" Tommy cried. "I'm sorry! Please, I'm sorry!" He begged.

Dream gave Tommy a frozen look before placing even more TNT and lighting it with a flame arrow.

"Dream?" Tommy asked, hoping somehow that his voice would convince the real Dream to return, the Dream who accompanied him daily in exile, who helped him build his exile home, who would help Tommy with whatever necessary.

"Tommy," Dream said, and Tommy looked towards Dream, searching for something, anything, just a single scrap of something that would allow Tommy to hope to get his old friend back. "You can't go into the nether. No one can visit you. Until, at least, you learn to listen."

Tommy was wordless. He stared around at the craters left of Logstedshire.

"You have to start over." Dream told Tommy, moving to blow up the tent now.

"But I have listened," Tommy finally said. "Stop! Please!" He scrambled away from Logstedshire, only to hear Dream place more TNT, causing a chain reaction to completely destroy Logstedshire.

Tommy didn't know what to say. Dream merely carelessly brushed the dust and dirt off of his armor, bordering on contempt, and regarded Tommy with a cold expression. Logstedshire was now one great crater.

As Tommy started, he accidentally dropped a stack of torches, and Dream's eyes flashed dangerously.

"Drop all of your items."

"What?" Tommy stopped fumbling for the torches in the crater. Dream didn't bother to repeat himself.

"Okay, okay," Tommy said quickly, digging a hole in the ground. If this would earn back some of Dream's favor, Tommy would do it, do anything. He dropped everything except for the pictures.

"Will you still come visit me?"

Dream didn't answer, instead lighting a piece of TNT and letting it drop down into the hole.

"You can keep this," Dream said, dropping Tommy something. Tommy picked it up. It was a jukebox. Tommy simply stared at it, unable to do anything else, say anything else, form any coherent thoughts to explain and wrap his mind around what had just happened.

Start over... from scratch.

"Tommy." Dream said, gaining Tommy's attention. "Don't do that again."

Tommy looked at Dream despairingly. It was all gone now. He would have to start over.

"Tommy, I exiled you for a reason."

Tommy started and took a step back. He'd almost forgotten. Looking at Dream now, he saw not his friend that he'd made over the course of his exile, but rather the one who'd twisted and warped the truth until Tubbo was forced to exile him.

"Tubbo exiled you for a reason."

Tommy felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach. He didn't like to be reminded.

"You didn't listen, that's why." Dream told you. "You wouldn't listen to the rules. Everyday, I wanted only your weapon and your armor. That's it!" He exclaimed, as if it was quite a small thing to ask for.

"I didn't even take it some days, and I even gave you armor once." Dream added. "But you have to try and wiggle your way out of the rules and defy me for some reason." He said, sounding patronizing and exasperated.

Dream looked at Tommy. "No matter how you feel about it, you're going to be here for a very long time. Now you have to start over: get new stuff, find a new place. Don't mess it up again. Don't make the same mistake. It won't happen again."

Tommy felt the need to apologize, so he did.

"I'll still visit you," Dream added, and Tommy felt immediately immensely relieved. "But, no one else can."

"Every day?" Tommy asked hopefully.

"Maybe not every day."

"How often?"

"At least once a week." Dream finally replied.

Dream sighed as if Tommy was the one being unreasonable. "Look, you need to see, you hid chests from me full of stuff to... I don't even know what you were planning. Most of those things, I wouldn't even have taken from you."

"I'm really sorry... I just wanted a place where I could say, these things are mine." Tommy tried to explain. "Why don't we... can't we just pretend this never happened?"

Dream pressed his lips into a straight line. "Sorry doesn't cut it, Tommy." He said it in a tone as if he regretted having to say so.

"Listen," Dream finally said. "I'll leave you here to think about your mistakes."

"What about the nether?" Tommy started. "What about my friends?"

"No!" Dream cut across Tommy. "You can't go into the nether, no one can come visit you, you will be alone. As soon as I think you have changed, and you've become someone who isn't going to hide and lie to me and try and revolt, I will open up the portal again, and you can go into the nether and people can come visit you. But in the meantime, no, you can't come."

Tommy felt his heart sink. Alone again. But then again, was he ever not?

"Look, I've been very lenient." Dream told Tommy. "And then I find out what you've done. I've been nothing but gracious to you."

"I'm so sorry." Tommy breathed, feeling like a broken record but not knowing how else to change what he was saying. What even was he apologizing for? Keeping his own things? Keeping his privacy?

Tommy started at the crater. Dream's last words to Tommy before he left were: "Tommy, think about what you did."

And then Tommy was alone again.