SAM’S PLAN ==>

Okay. You were scared for Diana’s plan, but you fear Sam’s plan like nothing else. You fear it like a seafarer fears the ocean she sails. With respect, and grudging love, and a cold bitterness. Which is to say, he is going to say something really stupid. Might as well just prepare. You start rinsing your plate. Sam stands up, cracking his knuckles and smiling slightly. 

Sam: Okay. You’ve waited. This is gonna be good. No disrespect meant, Diana. But this is gonna… Blow your plan… out of the water.

He says that like it’s a joke, and looks around for a reaction, with the stupid half-smile he gets after making a joke, and then the blank stare when he inevitably does not get one.

Sam: Oh. Hold on, that joke doesn’t make sense to you yet. Sorry.

YOU: (probably wouldn’t laugh anyway)

Alex: (don’t be mean alex!)

Albatross: (hehehe)

Albatross high fives you weakly. It looks like he’s eating Sam’s eggs while Sam gives his speech. He abruptly places his index finger over his lips and hushes you quietly. You give him a quick thumbs up and he smiles. And then goes back to shoveling eggs into his mouth. Wren giggles and ruffles his hair, making him shrink back immediately, but he smiles slightly. She cracks another couple eggs into the pan.

Wren: Hungry little dude, huh?

Albatross: Haha… yeah. 

Sam: Heh, mr. egg thief, I’m talkin’ here. Thanks.

Sam clears his throat really loudly.

Sam: So you know the firework shack? 

Diana: Fourth of july?

Sam: Yeahhh. But there are, uh, fireworks in their year round. Uh, Antimony, remember when we hung out with Will that one time?

Antimony: Oh, yes! And he told us his cousin worked at the shack, and he unlocked it! And we set off fireworks that night, it was beautiful!

Wren:...

Wren: That was you? Guys. That got in the news.

YOU: Well, it’s a small town.

Tracy: I didn’t know you did that either…

Sam: Uh, okay, that part isn't important. The important part is, we have access to explosives.

Antimony: Cool, pretty explosives!

Sam: Yeah >:3

Sam: Uh but okay. We can get tons and tons of fireworks, load up a few boats, row them out into the dome, set the fireworks off, jump into the water, blow up Apophis, and finish him off from the water. And I’ll launch a firework at Alex so she can Awaken.

YOU: Hate. Hate you.

Sam: ;3

Sam winks coquettishly. What a dummy. He sits down and sighs heavily. 

Sam: Eggs all gone :(

Wren: I’m cooking, Sam. Eggs for everyone! 

Sam: Okay. Tracy, you should get some. 

Tracy: Not hungry.

Sam: Okay :( 

Tracy: Fine. I’ll eat for you.

They walk over to the counter and start grumpily eating eggs. 

Wren: Well, we have a lot to discuss, I guess. I don’t see why we don’t just split up and do both things?

Sam: Huh.

Wren: They’re not mutually exclusive, you know.

Hm.

Do you want to do

-Diana’s Plan

-Sam’s Plan

-Both

-Make up your own plan

WHY NOT BOTH ==>

Yeah, you think that doing both plans is probably the best way. And. They’re really kinda both just pretty bare bones, as far as plans go? Doing both of them would make it seem like you’re doing more, wouldn’t it? You decide to tell them as much. Well, maybe not the last bit actually.

YOU: Throwing my hat into the “let’s split up and do both” ring.

Diana: Why are you throwing your hat down? Your beanie is very nice!

YOU: … 

YOU: Are you serious?

Diana: Hee hee, no :D 

Sam: But yeah, both our plans together in tandem sounds good. I guess we need to split up? I CALL TRACY.

Wren laughs and shakes her head.

Wren: Okay, that’s fine. Um, take Albie, please.

Albatross: Onto the boat covered in explosives? That sounds bad

Sam: Nah lil dude we’re gonna jump off. 

Wren: And Tracy can heal you, buddy!

Albatross coughs and sniffles, shrugging slightly. He starts rinsing his plate as you walk back to the couch and sit.

YOU: Uh… Why not just have some clones get the fireworks, and bring out the boat?

Sam:... Huh, good idea. Yeah. I mean, we should still probably split. Recruit a fireworks team and a battle team! Sounds good to me, anyway. Hey, Wren?

Wren: Yeah?

Sam: You got any makeup around here?

Wren laughs.

Wren: I mean, obviously. I’m so girl, Sam. So, so girl. 

Diana: She is!

Antimony: We are… Less girl.

Sam: Look, you know what would be super freaking awesome?

YOU: … What?

Sam: War paint! We should use Wren’s makeup, and, like, paint skull faces or something, I don't know. That sounds cool, right?

Diana: YEAH!!!
Antimony: YEAH!

Albatross: Oh, that sounds kinda dope actually.

Sam leaps into the air and clicks his heels, rushing into Wren’s bathroom. Diana leaps up too. 

Diana: There is black lipstick we can use!!!

Wren snorts and shakes her head. You glimpse out the window at the water flowing from the marsh into the street. Soon you won’t even be able to walk out there. The black dome seems to have changed shades of black somehow, and it kinda hurts to look at. You rest your eyes for a second…

Oh… 

Jeez, you had no idea how tired you were. It’s probably… Okay… to sleep for… a little… 

You open your eyes and find yourself in a waiting room. You recognize almost everyone in the room. Hastur is sitting beside you, still and corpselike, his helmet cracked open. The upper body of your grandfather rests in a chair to your right, and something that you can tell was once Sam’s father lies on the ground, still and unmoving. Principal Kessler sits silently in another chair, holding a sword in his lap.

Ahead of you is a small boy with light brown hair. He looks sad, and a little scared, maybe. You can hear the electric fans buzzing. You are dreaming, a fact you are fully aware of. What do you do?

TO LUCID DREAM IS TO BE GOD OF A LANDSCAPE OF YOUR OWN CREATION ==>

Man, you’re lucid dreaming! You almost never dream at all. This is clearly setup for an elaborate nightmare. A waiting room full of everyone who has died since the beginning of your adventure? Clearly gonna be a nightmare. Oh, and there’s also a little boy here? Whatever, maybe he’s supposed to be you and this is gonna be another dysphoria nightmare?

(when you do dream it is a nightmare, and either you are a boy again and you cannot make you voice higher or look how you want, or else it is halloween again and you are there, in the haunted house, and you can hear them breathi-)

But whatever. You read somewhere that if you know you are dreaming you can change it… So you decide to fly. You close your eyes, and try really really hard to do it… But it doesn’t look like anything is happening. You sigh heavily. You stand up on the chair and try to leap off, but you just fall flat on your face. It doesn’t hurt, at least. You roll on your back and try to make a dragon appear. Maybe you can alter the dream by adding something to it?

You screw your face real tight and kinda clench your butt too, like that would even do anything. None of the corpse bodies even turn to look at you. The boy does though. He has a perplexed look on his face. He’s kinda thin, with hair that is reddish brown, like yours, but more red than yours. He has no freckles, and a less birdlike face. He clears his throat.

Boy: Ma’am? What are you doing?

YOU: Trying to affect this dream, like… Change it. 

Boy: Well… This isn’t really a dream, miss. I’m afraid it doesn’t really work like that.

YOU: Not a dream. I was worried about that.

TALK TO THIS CLOWN ==>

YOU: So… What is this place?

Boy: This is the inside of your brain, kind of. I am not truly certain, miss! The corpses, I believe, may represent certain baggage you carry. 

Okay. Weird brain stuff. You can deal with that. You can firmly compartmentalize this as “not real,” a very helpful thing to be able to do. Up j chillin’ with some little brain boy in your brain death place. Cool. Totally cool.

YOU: So… Who are you?

Boy: Ah, not an easy question to answer, I’m afraid. In life I was… many people. I can’t remember any names except the most recent. Samuel Akkerman. I was a young boy. I suppose I still am… I have been, for a long, long time.

He smiles bitterly.

Samuel: Don’t worry, miss. I don’t actually exist, despite appearances to the contrary. I am but a construct stored in your brain. Something that is easier for you to process than what you are actually speaking to.

YOU: And… What am I actually speaking to? 

He shrugs uncomfortably.

Samuel: The Heir? Yourself? Nothing, masquerading as something? The memory of something you never experienced? Memories from a past life? I don’t know, miss, I only just became sentient. I apologize.

YOU: That’s… Fine… Although it really doesn’t answer anything very well.

Samuel: Yes, I suppose not. 

YOU: So, why are we here? Like this?

He smiles faintly, settling into the chair. You are still lying on the ground, looking up at him. 

Samuel: The Heir has always had… Trouble with Awakening.

YOU: It kinda feels like I’ve always had trouble with everything. Currently, my theory is that I’m boring. 

Samuel: What-

YOU: I mean, I’m just… surrounded by all these people who are far more interesting than me, and it feels like… I’m passed over for them, honestly. Because I’m just little me, with my little piddling problems. I mean, I have dysphoria, and I got… uh… beaten up really bad once by some bullies. Meanwhile, my cousin was raised by the man responsible for her mother’s death, and he neglected her for years, and my best friend was raised by a guy who attacked him with swords every day and ran a cult, and died before he could say he loved him. Suddenly “sad emo trans girl” seems like a little bit of a whiner. 

Samuel smiles ruefully.

Samuel: It is always dads, isn’t it, miss?

YOU: It is! It is ALWAYS dads! What is up with that? It’s like our fate is being designed by someone with daddy issues, I SWEAR.

Samuel: Ha. Well, regardless, I do understand what you mean. My incarnation of The Six were very… Volatile people. I suppose they were my friends as well. But I was… Am… a young boy. I should have been out playing with mud and sticks. 

He frowns slightly.

Samuel: Instead, I drowned in the Puget Sound at the ripe old age of twelve.

YOU: … That sucks.

Samuel: Yes, well. The people I thought were my friends, barring my cousin, in the end fought solely for self preservation. I died more or less alone. Is the same true of your friends?

You sit up, and look at him, and laugh, despite yourself, burying your face in your hands and shaking your head.

YOU: No, no. The inverse, really. I don’t think there’s been even one fight where one of my friend’s hasn’t tried to lay their life down for the rest of us. Worst case scenario, all of us try to sacrifice ourselves to save the others at the exact same time, and nobody is left by the end. 

Samuel: Selfless to the point of madness.

YOU: I guess so. Yeah.

Samuel: I just… I want you to know that I believe in you, miss. I’m rooting for you. And at this point, I’m kind of counting on you to Awaken… I think I’ll stay sentient until then, and honestly, I just want my ego to be subsumed. I’m dead. I want to rest.

YOU: Am I… about to do that?

Samuel: You can try. You’re in mortal peril if you try, of course. This is an actual waiting room, in a way. A precursor, a way to prepare yourself.

He smiles shakily, casting his watery eyes on you.

Samuel: Do you… Want to try?

>YES

>NO

I just want  you to know im reading this and it is AMAZING *claps*