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Joy. Laughter. Willy couldn’t help but grin as he watched the people around him, both adults and children enjoying his variety of treats. Bright cheerfulness — something he hadn’t experienced for a long time — filled the air, and Willy had to pinch himself to ensure this wasn’t a dream. Everything seemed so unreal, the kind of thing he could only conjure up in his mind late at night, lying in his bed — if you could call it that — with only his thoughts keeping him company.
Unconsciously, Willy’s eyes drifted to his friends: Noodle and Abacus at the cash register, and Piper, Lottie and Larry helping others. A small chuckle escaped him as he watched Noodle and Abacus chat with the customers, excitement radiating off of them, carrying all the way to him at the tree.
“There’s so much here, I don’t know where to start.” He heard a voice groan from behind him. Willy turned around, was just about to suggest trying the chocolate milk when he heard his name being called. A glance over the shoulder revealed a middle-aged man, his blue hair rapidly growing. Wait. Blue?
With a few swift steps, he made his way to the flowers, randomly picking up one and taking a bite. Realization came with panic — yeti sweat?
“Yeti sweat?” the blue-haired man asked, causing Willy to nap his head up. He must’ve been thinking aloud.
“The most powerful hair potion in the world,” he explained quickly, brows creased. “But I didn’t add it in there!” He rarely even used it. There must’ve been something else in the flower too — yeti sweat didn’t cause blue hair. Perhaps the rays of a rainbow he’d collected a few years ago? But who could’ve—
Willy shook his head, spitting the sweet pieces of chocolate out of his mouth before rushing up to the tree, informing everyone of the ‘manufacturing error’, as he decided to call it. At least it was just the flowers.
Or so he thought.
“There’s nothing wrong with the chocolate milk, is there?” someone asked, and Willy was about to turn around and say something along the lines of no, of course there’s nothing wrong with the chocolate milk , was about to assure everyone that this was just a minor problem, nothing to worry about. Upon turning around though, all words disappeared from his mouth, dread forming a pit in his stomach as he was met with not only green hair, but — oh God — green skin as well.
The cacophony of colors filling the shop would’ve been hilarious to Willy in any other situation, but now he could feel his grip on reality slipping as he listened to a mother rant about her daughter and toadstools and— focus, Willy .
Right. He cleared his throat, quickly gathering himself. “I’m terribly sorry, everyone,” he started, swallowing. Surely they wouldn’t blame him. Right. Right? “And uh, I don’t know how to explain this, but it appears the chocolate has been… poisoned!”
“You poisoned my child?” the same woman cried out, her tone causing Willy to take a defensive step back.
“I— I didn’t poison them,” he tried to explain, but any words were drowned out by the shouts erupting from the crowd, blames merging together until Willy couldn’t make anything individual out anymore. Chocolate flew through the air, Willy struggling to dodge as people hurled whatever was nearest to them at him.
He tried to get the crowd under control, tried to focus , goddamnit, but it was no use. All he could do was watch as his dreams got crushed — quite literally, glass shattering, chocolate spilling on the floor. Willy’s head was swimming, thoughts muddling together, circling around without giving him a chance to grasp onto any of them.
A crash came, the chandelier his friends had spent so long cleaning hitting the floor — just like the way his heart had dropped to his stomach. A sudden wave of heat passed through the shop, angry shouts turning into panicked cries as the crowd dropped the rapidly melting chocolate, turning their focus to making it out of the burning building as soon as possible instead.
Burning? Willy blinked — or rather, his body did, vaguely registering the flames that had engulfed the lamp.
The chandelier coming down had been the final straw, snapping the few weak threads connecting him to reality. His mind blanked, the world fading away, becoming blurry, foggy. It was like his mind had been detached from his body, as if he was just watching a movie of himself.
He was numb.
Empty.
He was empty as everyone exited the shop, leaving him staring into the sea of fire for God knows how long. He was empty when Noodle called to him from outside, urging him to get out. He was empty as he obliged, flames licking his legs as he walked past them. He was empty, when he should’ve felt pain. He was empty when the police and the firefighters arrived. He was empty when everyone had left, leaving him and his friends alone, in the middle of a destroyed dream.
He was empty until his fingers brushed against the bar of chocolate in his pocket, all the pain crashing down on him at once. His leg flooded with white-hot pain and his chest screamed for air. His leg burned, his chest burned, his dream. His dream had already been burnt down.
She hadn’t been here.
His mother hadn’t been here.
It was all just a stupid dream.