Chapter 6: Chapter 5
I sat on a chair in the van in L'Manburg. I looked out the window to see little clouds chasing each other through the blue expanse overhead. The sun shone on a beautiful nation, an independent nation.
There is a picture frame on the wall holding a book, no bigger than my hand. There are 10 pages in total, the last page holding the binding names of everyone from L'Manburg, signatures that show who fights for freedom. My name is first, in print writing. Then Tommy, in all caps, harsh blocky letters. Jack, signed Thunder, in scrawled writing. Niki, in cute writing with hearts dotting the 'i's. Eret, in looping writing. Tubbo, in rather neat writing, but slightly shaky. And lastly Fundy, my dear son, who wrote his in all lowercase, like he was only doing it because he had to.
The book outlines the reasons for this rebellion, what we want to gain.
"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of victory."
A beautiful phrase, one that perfectly encapsulates our movement. I remember telling Tommy that starting a movement, a rebellion like this was not going to be easy. The next time I saw him he was in his L'Manburg outfit, it made me proud.
I had named the book independence but spelt 'Independance'. The misspelling was an accident at the time, but it suits L'Manburg well, we know what we want and sure, we'll make a few mistakes on the way, but we learn from them. We also learn from the mistakes of government's past.
I nodded to myself in the chair and looked out the window, not to the sky this time but to the L'Manburgians, building our walls higher and stronger. We are safe within these walls.
I begin to get up and stretch my legs but a book on my lap falls off, a quiet thud as it hits the floor. In similar fashion to the last, it is small, and very powerful. It is titled 'Declaration of War'. It was a small red book. It had two pages, an explanation, and a list of names.
The first page read – 'This is the formal document stating that the current rulers of the Dream SMP wage war against the people of L'Manburg. We will not be holding back. These are the consequences for instating an illegal nation.'
I had read this paragraph many times, not believing it. Fundy had said that he didn't know what I expected, that I must have known that a tyrant like Dream wouldn't just let this slide. I knew that we would eventually have to fight for our freedom, but I did not think it would be this soon, that we would have so little time to prepare. We were not ready for a full-fledged war. But I remind myself that what we are trying to accomplish here was never an easy task.
The second page had a list of names, the people we were up against. The people who had signed were Dream, the amazing fighter and leader of the opposition. Also, Sapnap, an arsonist and most certainly unhinged. George Notfound, a laid-back man who followed dream and Sapnap wherever they went. Also, Punz, a man that kept to himself but was highly dangerous. Punz profited from the Dream SMP in power, I didn't bother asking him to my side.
Dream had delivered the book to me, under the cover of night. I had woken in a fright, to a smiley mask inches from my face. I thought I was going to die but the man just placed a little red book on my chest and exited silently the way he had entered. I had been breathing heavily and once I saw the name of the book I decided to wait till morning, to read it with my allies.
When we had read it together, we sat in silence. Tommy made jokes and Tubbo laughed but the whole encounter was dampened by our likely impending doom. We knew the odds, that the armour and weapons on the other side were better and stronger. But we had faith and friendship, a combined reason to strive to win and survive. Freedom.
~~~~~
A tape recorder has been left out the front of our van, a simple brown box left by an unknown. Niki had found it when she had woken up and taken a morning walk. She had listened to it and immediately come to me. She knocked on the door and I had answered to a stone face. She had passed me the recorder with shaking hands and her voice quavered as she spoke,
"This was on the steps up to the van," She looked up at me with round eyes, "You should listen to it."
I pressed play and Dream's voice echoed out of the box,
"Tommy and Wilbur and the rest of L'man-child-burg, we are at war. There is no mercy. We have burned down Tubbo's house and planted cannons around your land. We have fired one warning shot into L'Manburg. We have no mercy for you. NO MERCY! We will burn down your houses and destroy everything inside your walls. We will take back our land if you do not surrender. I want to see white flags, WHITE FLAGS INSIDE YOUR WALLS, BY DAWN TOMMORROW OR YOU ARE DEAD!" I gaped at the box then set my mouth into a straight line, desperately trying to regain composure.
"Thank you, Niki," I said in a, hopefully, unwavering, and leader-type voice, "Tell the others that we have a meeting in twenty minutes." She nodded and then left. I checked around, to see if Dream was anywhere, in the surrounding trees silently laughing at my expense.
I closed the door and locked it. I changed into my L'Manburg uniform, Dream's words bouncing around in my head. The day had just started, and I already had a headache. Massaging my temples, I got up and went to the van where everyone was slowly assembling.
We all gathered in our L'Manburg uniforms. Fundy had finally got a uniform, he'd been asking for one for a while and I'd picked the colours I thought would best suit his skin tone, all pastel blues, and pinks. He was a little disappointed, but he wasn't old enough to know what was good for him.
I welcomed them, waving off Eret and Tubbo's concerns of my stress and Tommy's question about the tape recorder. I sat it on the table, and everyone gathered around. The lack of space in the van, the amount of people we had, would have made me feel better in a different scenario.
I press play, glancing at Niki and my heart pains, she has puffy red eyes from crying, but she had anger embedded into her features. Dreams voice once again booms out of the recorder, bouncing off the walls of the van. Instead of focusing on the venom of the words Dream spits, I listen to the background sounds. The wind and the birds chirping, all drowned out by Sapnap's maniacal laughter. He giggles at random points; some make sense, and some don't. He's dangerous, I think.
I looked around once the recording had stopped, leaving everyone stood in shocked silence and stated,
"We are officially at war with the Dream SMP."
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