Sandman was fighting for his life here. It was brutal, grueling, and really tiresome, but he had to do it. If he were to die, who would give the children their dreams? It was all fine and well that Tooth and him could brag about having 24/7 jobs, but not even Tooth would understand how hard his job actually was. Because when it came down to it, when you really looked at the jobs, Sandy's was the most vital. Miss Easter or Christmas one year? Fine, the children will still have their dreams; they'll find some excuse as to why it was impossible to have that holiday this year. Tooth unable to work? Just hire the other guardians until something more permanent could be figured out. Short term solution, yeah, but still a solution. If Sandy were killed off children would be plagued by nightmares and who would step in to pass out good dreams? Who had that power? And that was why Sandy fought for his life. He fought the nightmares; he fought Pitch, not to keep living but to keep the dreams alive.

But there was so much darkness. All around him the stars were replaced with black sand, the moon was covered by a veil of fear. Sandman could only guess at what the other guardians were doing, he couldn't see anything. The twisted dreams surrounded him. Sandy fought with his whips on his island of dream sand, turning as much of the demented dreams back to their original light. But too many children believed in Pitch, it was overwhelming. Yet he had to succeed, until help came.

He was twisting all over the place trying to keep back the mares. What he didn't realize what that he turned his back to Pitch, and not a second later he felt the pierce. Less of a pierce, really, more a dull thump followed by the feeling of evil being sucked into his sand.

Sandy grabbed at his chest. He began to feel cold, which was really scary. Sandman hadn't felt temperature in over five hundred years. He was a world traveler, no weather could stop him, and temperature was not allowed to be a factor. But now he felt it, the freezing grip of winter, of Jack Frost. It made him vibrate violently, what he remembered was called shivers. Sandman was freezing.

He turned and grabbed desperately at his sandy island, but all the gold he touched was morphed to black. Sandman was causing nightmares, turning his own beautiful dreams to bitter fears. He could no longer protect his dreams; he could not make anything beautiful. His sand was turning sinister, dark, and cruel. It was turning to black sand and it was swarming.

And all that was without mentioning the pain, the incredible pain. It was the foreign sand entering his body, killing the good, slicing him apart from the inside. Sandman looked up at the Boogeyman.

"I'd say sweet dreams, but there aren't any left," Pitch sneered at the little golden man. And Sandy knew it was over.

That was about when the fear struck. The real fear, not the fear of loosing everything, but the fear of what has already been lost, of what his actions have done to secure the grim future. Sandy saw it all as the black sand consumed his body. He saw all the children around the world cringing as monsters jumped from the closet, as beasts chased them down alleyways. Sandman lived every child's nightmare, every baby's deepest fear. He lived it all as Pitch's sand spread.

But there was one dream that couldn't be killed. Sandy's dream, the dream of sleep being the ultimate escape. Of our minds being the safe house of our lives. And with that dream in heart Sandy stood tall and looked at Pitch with his bright golden eyes. He seemed to say so long as one child still dreams I will never die.

And then the Sandman was swept away, mixed in, and absorbed into nightmare. Everything was pitch black.