How long had it been since it snowed in Cape Town?
Jack Frost could not remember exactly, only that it had been far to long.
The wind and the icy clouds swirled around the Guardian of Fun as he twirled, twisted, and looped around in the sky on his wooden staff creating a small flurry that would soon coat the Cape of Good Hope in a layer of white. Unfortunately the temperate climate of the region allowed for only a light snowfall, but the smiles on the children's faces at the sight of such a rare treat made it worth it to Jack to extend the immense energy it took to make it snow in South Africa.
He swooped down into the neighborhoods, where children were rushing out of their homes, eyes like pie plates and mouths agape with wonder at the beautiful wintry surprise. They laughed and danced and stuck out their tongues to catch the tiny snowflakes as they fell. The joy in these children gave Jack a strong feeling of accomplishment and pride.
Feeling that his Guardianly duties were done for the day, Jack jumped back aboard the wind and began a southbound flight to Antarctica, one of his favorite places to sleep. Ever since he had discovered his true purpose in that dark chasm there, the continent always induced pleasant dreams of his human childhood.
Before he made it there, however, something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He only saw the whatever-it-was for a millisecond, but it gave him an off feeling. He followed in the general direction he thought the thing had gone. Again, he saw a flash of the same unidentifiable something. This time, though, he knew it was something unnatural; not a bird or anything that belonged in the sky.
Then he heard something…
Swish.
…that was most defiantly not the wind. Something twisted in his gut that told him that something was defiantly very wrong.
"A feeling in my belly," Jack muttered, "I've been hanging out with North way too much."
Swish.
There was the sound again, and with it came a slightly better view of the "UFO" that Jack had been chasing. It was defiantly black with a glistening and wispy look about it.
Jack gritted his teeth (something Toothy often scolded him for doing) "That better not be what I think it is," he grumbled and continued his pursuit of what was quite possibly a…
Then the thing that the young guardian had been chasing finally shot straight up and reared its head in front of Jack. It's sickly translucent yellow eyes stared straight thru Jacks own crystal blue ones, its black snout only inches from Jacks face. Its main flickered like black fire in the wind.
A Nightmare.
"How are you following me?" Jack shouted angrily at the dark conjuring of fear in front of him. "I'm not afraid!"
The Nightmare snorted smoke in Jacks face. Before the Guardian could ready his staff to strike at it, the Nightmare let out a whine so loud and so shrill that Jack had to cover his ears. Suddenly the sky around and above him went dark and at least four or five more of the terrible horses surrounded him.
In one swift motion Jack grabbed the staff from under his feet and took aim, firing a blast of ice straight into one of the nightmares, disintegrating the creature into shards of blue-tinted sandy black ice. But Jack's back was turned just long enough for two more Nightmares to form a cloud around him, closing, smothering and blinding him. He could not help the panic that swept over him when he began to feel the sand constrict around him, making it harder and harder to move. One band of nightmare sand twisted around his wrist and snapped it back painfully, making Jack cry out from the pain.
"AH! Wait…Wait, No! NOO!"
The wrist that was now broken was to weak to allow his fingers a tight enough grip on the staff, and it slipped from his hand and fell thru the sky toward the ocean beneath.
"NOOOO!"
He was still in the air, though, now completely incased and immobilized by nightmare sand.
Then he felt like he was falling, plummeting, freefalling, though inside his sandy prison he could see nothing but total darkness. He could hear, though. He could hear the rush of air past him. He was falling.
Falling without his only means of transportation.
Falling trapped inside an encasement of Nightmares.
Trapped with no means of escape.
Trapped by the creation of an enemy he thought had been defeated.
"Do you hear me, Pitch?!" Jack tried to shout, but he could not hear his own voice in the suffocation of his bondage. Still he shouted, "You won't get away with this! I'll-"
Jack could not finish his last sentence before the Nightmares surrounding him crashed into the ground
