(A/n) I have recently watched Over the Garden Wall just last week and I wanted to write a one-shot. Spoilers will be present

thank you

...

They were in the water. That's what led to being in the Unknown in the first place, almost drowning. Wirt knew this was his fault, if he hadn't been so stupid and careless and had faced his dumb, stupid problems, he could've avoided all this.

He didn't have to drag Greg into this. Oh jeez, he really wished he hadn't. Greg had nearly died because of his actions. They both had. 

His brother had been turning into a tree.

He hated, he couldn't even stand thinking about this. The way Greg had looked so helpless and so hopeless and so empty. That wasn't like Greg. Greg was supposed to be happy and innocent and full of so much energy and compassion.

Greg had frowned. Greg rarely frowns. It just wasn't something that he did. Even when Beatrice had led them to Adelaide, he didn't frown. Not like this. Nothing about any of how Greg had been was right. 

It was just so wrong.

But it was okay.

They were going to get home, and they were both going to be alive. Breathing. They wouldn't have to deal with any pumpkin zombies or trees leaking oil. They were going to be okay, and that was a rock fact.

Rock facts couldn't be wrong.

They were still in the water when Wirt opened his eyes. Of course, he didn't know why he expected anything to be different since the last time they were here and alive.

He didn't know if they were even dead before, technically speaking. The Unknown, from what he was aware of, had been some kind of purgatory. They were in a state between life and death and yet...

It didn't matter.

He had to get Greg.

He had found him facing downwards in the water. Wirt had, unfortunately, almost missed him. God, how many more times was he going to screw up? Beatrice was right, he was a loser back home. 

He swam up to Greg and grabbed ahold of him and Jason Funderburker. He didn't want to forget their frog and have Greg get upset because of yet another stupid decision that he had made. That was the last thing he needed.

He reached the surface and immediately started coughing. He was finally able to breathe and this made him so overjoyed and so relieved that he was inhaling actual oxygen instead of cold, filthy lake water.

He wrapped Greg around his back. It made Wirt's chest tighten with such a horrible feeling seeing Greg like this. If he didn't know better, he would've said Greg had looked like he already drowned.

Don't think about it.

He reached the edge of the lake and had collapsed onto the ground. His legs ached and throbbed and his chest burned and his ears just wouldn't stop ringing. He could feel his heart pounding as he took as many breaths as he could muster. He felt so hot despite the fact he had been in sixty-degree water not even two minutes ago.

He had dropped Greg next to him and smiled. "It's okay, Greg." Wirt was barely able to speak without coughing and wheezing. He was shaky and everything just seemed to hurt and he felt so weak.

He didn't know when he noticed Greg wasn't responding. All he knew was that one moment, he was here at the lake, and he had woken up at the hospital the next. Everything between that moment was a jumble of events and trying to recall anything at all made his head hurt.

"What happened?" He sat up in his hospital bed and rubbed the back of his neck. His vision was hazy and his ears were still slightly ringing, but at least he was alive. He turned over to Sara, who was sitting in the bed, next to him.

"You doing okay?" Her voice was soft yet concerned. "You were in pretty bad shape when we found you. I mean, you were in the river, right? We found you right by it and you were unconscious."

Sara took a deep breath. Wirt had noticed that Sara was shaking and that she had seemed a bit upset but he avoided commenting on the behavior. She continued.

"The cops were with us, thankfully, and an ambulance came shortly after. You were hypothermic and had some water in your lungs, but your brother-"

Wirt's eyes went wide at the mention of Greg and he had almost choked on air. "Greg?? Is he okay?? Last time I saw him I grabbed him and took him out of the water, but-"

"Wirt-"

"I passed out before I was able to check on him? Is he here?" He looked around the room for any signs of Greg, but there weren't any. Maybe he was in a separate room?

"Wirt, he's-"

"He's alive, isn't he? Oh, thank god, I-"

"Wirt!" Sara grabbed his shoulders, which made him stop mid-sentence. She looked at him, her tense expression loosened when he looked back up at her with an unreadable expression. She sighed and dropped her arms to her side.

"Wirt, I'm so sorry but..." Her voice went quiet and she looked like she was going to cry. "He's gone."

Wirt's face had immediately fallen. "What?"

"I'm so, so sorry, Wirt, but they tried everything they could to bring him back, but he was in the water for too long and his body temperature was too cold and-"

Wirt started crying. "You're lying."

"I know, I know, it's... it's really hard to accept this..." She choked on her words. "But he wanted you to know that the train had said nyoom."

Wirt's expression had immediately changed to one of confusion. He tried to speak and ask her what she was talking about, but he couldn't get the words out. He had felt so bad that he wasn't able to do anything but stare and continue to feel horrible. He was a horrible brother.

"The... train?" 

He didn't know how long it'd been since Sara had last spoken. It felt like they had been sitting in silence for ages, Wirt wanting to speak but not being able to get any of the words out. Speaking just felt so wrong, like it had been something he never did in the past fifteen years of his existence.

"The train, the one that was heading towards you before you jumped in the water. He wanted you to know the train had said nyoom as it passed by you." She looked to the side, unable to look Wirt in the eyes. "I'm, sorry, Wirt but the train just-"

"The train said nyoom?"

Sara nodded sadly.

"How the hell does a train say nyoom?"

Sara shrugged. "I don't know, but the doctors assume it's also what caused Greg's elongated neck." She took a deep breath. "Do you know about that?"

Wirt quickly shook his head. "I'm sorry, what?!?"

"His neck, it was elongated when we had found you guys. It was eight feet long, like a giraffe."

"Stop. This isn't funny Sara."

Sara looked hurt as she spoke. "I'm being serious, his neck was elongated when we found you guys. I-"

The two were interrupted when the door had creaked open. "Hey, uh, Wirt?" Jason Funderberker, the human, was standing at the door. "Can you tell Greg's neck to stop getting bigger? He's dead but his neck keeps on growing and it's making me uncomfortable."

"His neck is growing?" Sara looked over at Jason as he spoke, him nodding in response. "Yeah, and the frog is following it. I think it's going towards-"

Jason had yelped in surprise as Greg's neck had stretched into the room. Wirt immediately suppressed the urge to vomit at the sight. 

You could easily tell that Greg dead, based on his features alone. The way his face and expression had been, it was clear there was no more life inside there, and yet...

Wirt's throat had gone dry when Greg's neck had stretched towards him, Jason Funderburker, the frog, hopping alongside it. He had tried to let out a scream, anything, but he hadn't been able to.

"Greg... I..."

The corpse had blinked and Wirt let out a loud, piercing screech. Nothing about any of this was right, he had to still be in the Unknown. He pinched himself as hard as he could, letting out a groan of pain. It had hurt. A lot.

It then hit him that he hadn't been dreaming.

All of this was real.

His breath was shaky as he tried to comprehend everything that was going on but he just couldn't. This wasn't natural and it wasn't right, yet, it was still a thing that was happening, somehow.

"Nyoom."

Wirt looked over, and he spotted Jason Funderburker on the floor next to his bed. He stared for a moment and rubbed his eyes. No, the frog didn't just speak, that wasn't possible. Of this had to have been a hallucination from dealing with the fact his brother was dead.

The frog had spoken again.

"Nyoom."

Wirt blinked and sat up straight. If there was any background music, it would've come to a halt as Wirt stood up. "I'm done."

He wasn't able to walk that well, but he just wanted to leave. He wanted to get out of here and go anywhere other than here. "Wait, Wirt-"

"Stop it, Sara, I'm not staying."

"But Wirt, the hospital, it's-"

"I don't care, I'm not-"

He had opened the door and stepped out of the room when he realized he had walked out the wrong door. "Shit."

For a brief moment, he was in the air, before he had fallen with a sickening crunch. Sara and both Jasons had looked out the doorway before sighing. 

"I don't know why they had this door in here."

(A/n) I had the ability to make this something serious but I threw it out the window and made this halfway through instead. I have no regrets