Dream couldn't help it. He had to know. He opened the second door, and stepped in.
Through the door, there was nothing but obsidian and fire.
Dream shuddered, though he didn't know why.
He stepped forward. There was an edge here. He could see something underneath.
Bedrock.
Beneath the obsidian he was standing on, there was only bedrock.
No. He knew this. He knew what this was.
Dream strained his eyes, looking around frantically. It couldn't be true.
But it was.
He was standing on an obsidian frame, an outline that he knew used to have redstone on it.
Those periodic blocks of grey were dispensers. They used to be hooked up to redstone, and they used to contain TNT. So much TNT.
Dream was afraid to look up. But he had to know.
There was Nightmare, smirking at him. And beside him? Beside him was Technoblade.
This was one of only three foreseeable outcomes. Total destruction. Doomsday, but far worse than he could have planned himself.
This was what had to be avoided at all costs. For his sake. For Tommy's sake.
And for Nightmare's sake.
If he didn't do this, he would never be sent to the prison. Dream hadn't been an enemy of the server until-
The prison interrupted the memory.
It flickered in and out of his vision, and then he was there again.
This was the worst outcome. Dream wasn't just fighting against Nightmare, he was fighting against him for his own sake.
But all his noble thoughts fled him as he heard Quackity's voice across the lava. He couldn't go through this again. Couldn't. For all his words, he was nothing in the face of the glaring reality of this thing, this abomination. And worse, it had been created by his own hand.
But just as the lava began to part, Dream started awake, barely restraining himself from calling out. He was still standing in front of Ranboo. No time had passed.
Dream slowly let out his breath. He hadn't even realized that he had been holding it, but he wasn't surprised.
Memories... These memories were too much for him. Too much. And he hadn't even gotten to open the third door.
What would his third death be like? He would never know now, not unless he could somehow recreate the sensations and force himself back into an unstable state of mind where the memories might emerge. But that was a long shot at best, even if he could do it. To even attempt it, he would need more resources and time than he had, or a facility that was already built for it, and that wasn't even considering the safety aspect of it. No, he would just keep going, keep doing as he always did. And that was to do what he could to help Tommy and the others.
If they needed help, Dream would not be curled up on the floor in a lab. He would protect them.
Ranboo smiled down at him.
"Hello, Dream," he said cheerily. "What are you doing here? And why are you on the floor?"
So it was the enderwalk. Dream looked down at the floor, and there was the eye of ender that had started this. Dream quickly snatched it up and tucked it away, then hesitated, unsettled by his own instinct to protect it.
Something was going on. Something beyond him. Just as he had always suspected.
And that something had to do with the end. Dream would need to go there, and soon, if he wanted to prevent the destruction that he was sure would come soon.
Dream knew what the third door was. But he wanted to see. He wanted to hope that it might somehow not be true. Somehow. Somehow, he wanted to be wrong.
The third door was the realization of the true Nightmare. The intervention of, and destruction caused by, some extraterrestrial entity.
Forces would collide, forces that Dream had never known. And they would collide soon.
Dream needed to be ready. The server needed to be ready.
Nightmare would have to be converted.
Converted... or killed.
Permanently.