Dream gasped, finding himself almost immediately in a place of vibrant color.
Looking around, Dream gaped at the sheer multitude of people. And not a single one of them had even iron armor.
All there were was leathers in different dyes. Bright, shocking to his eyes after a lifetime of the only color he interacted with being the slight hues of potions and the red of TNT and redstone.
All around there were sheep intermixed with the crowd, these also dyed numerous colors. Dream felt overwhelmed, bombarded with colors, sights, sounds, smells. Everywhere they were cooking meat or some other food, and there were chickens, cows, pigs, and sheep, sheep, sheep.
There was a blue sheep. It walked among the others like a ghost among the living, moving between them in a staggering, noncommittal way, as though driven forward by an inexorable force. Dream wove his own way through the crowd, only to find it disappear down an alley between two bakeries just as he got out of the main mass of people and animals.
Dream slipped into the alley with one last glance around himself. No one was watching. No one even seemed to notice him.
In between the two buildings, the sheep stood impassively as a child buried their face in its wool, apparently not caring about the dye that must have been used to change it to blue. That said, the color was faded, so it may be old.
The child looked up at him, miserable, and then Dream noticed the tear marks on their face. But more than that, he knew this child.
It was Ghostbur.
Dream crouched in front of him, and he scrambled closer, tackling Dream to the ground in a hug and shaking with relief.
"You made it... I sent Blue to find you... I though you wouldn't find him..."
Then Ghostbur pushed him away, grinning eagerly. "So, where is he?"
Dream stared at him, not understanding what he meant. It had to be Tommy. Who else-
"Hey, Dream."
The voice came from behind him. It was soft and quiet, and flooded with emotion. So much that Dream couldn't recognize him.
So he turned around. And saw Wilbur.
Wilbur was staring at him, and at the figure huddled behind him.
Wilbur reached his hand out.
"Come on," he whispered. "I won't hurt you again."
Ghostbur shook his head, huddling deeper into the shadows.
Then Dream was ripped from the vision, thrust into another.
Tommy and Wilbur were standing up on a stage, Tommy speaking animatedly out into the air over a colorful crowd. This wasn't a different memory, but an adjacent one. Dream couldn't hear what they were saying, but he could see a look in their eyes.
TommyInnit. Perhaps he was power-hungry, as Technoblade said.
But this was only the first of three doors. There was a way to avoid it, Dream knew there was. And if there wasn't?
He'd make a way.
No one, no one would decide Dream's fate.
We make our own path.
That was his philosophy, his... brother's...
Dream found himself back in the museum of memories, confused. What had he been thinking?
He didn't know.
The first door had seemed good, at first. The people were happy. The new people, at least. Wilbur and Ghostbur weren't. Something had happened between them.
And Tommy?
He wasn't happy either. He was arrogant, greedy. He had become a true tyrant.
Dream could only guess at the state of the others.
He couldn't let that happen, just as much as he couldn't let Technoblade destroy L'Manburg.
He was playing a delicate balancing game, and he knew it. It wasn't enough for L'Manburg to win. They needed to learn. Tommy especially.
And as Dream faced the second door, he admitted something to himself.
He was also losing.
And he knew it.