Disclaimer: Disclaimed.
A/N: I'll spoil nothing, but there's nightmare fuel and weirdness in this one. And Norglish grammar. Probably.
.
.
Marekatt
.
.
The last thing the Pitch Black sees of the surface is the pale moonlight flickering—triumphantly, he believes—before he's pulled under the broken bed. The Fearlings follow him like a black hurricane, plunging into his head, scraping out the remains of his fear; his humanity. He cannot tell how much time passes in the dark.
The Fearlings finish with satisfied noises. It isn't as much neighing as it is screaming. Pitch recalls them collecting screams from a kid's nightmare about his grandfather's stable on fire. Now, whenever joyful, they sound like the burning horses galloping out.
It takes deep concentration just to stand, his pale skin half-transparent, black attire lucid like smoke.
Pitch mutters revenge in every known tongue of man and knows what he must do. But a spirit cannot die, so he'll hurt Jack Frost through other means.
A ghost (a shadow of its former self) glides through hidden halls and worlds sunken in the earth, Fearlings following like black wildfire in his footsteps. He finds an oak door, and inside a chamber glittering with gems, walls made of amethysts. Shelves stand as tall as skyscrapers—the ceiling nowhere in sight—and are filled with ancient scrolls, some from civilizations far older than him. He inhales the scent of dirt and magic and ink and blood.
It takes weeks to find to find the worn, yellow page among his collection of Icelandic runes.
.
.
In a dark, damp room, a circle chalk is drawn. Lit candles surround it.
A knife glimmers in their light. It cuts into ashen flesh, slitting from the underside of the elbow to the middle finger. A substance thicker than ink and thinner than tar drips from his wound, hissing as it mends with the chalk. The ritual is prepared while he chants in dead languages.
"Marekatt," he calls.
All the candles are blown out simultaneously. Something ominous creep in, thickening the air. An entity has awoken and entered the room. It is in the shadows. All Pitch can make out is some sort of ball—
(oh no it is turning and there are spindly legs cracking and it is sluggishly twisting its form around and something shines and)
Two eyes in the dark. Unblinking. Lidless, Pitch realizes. The pupils are round and black and deep like dark waters. Fixed on him. Hadn't he been the personification of fear itself, he would've shuddered.
Some Fearlings near it, less receptive for ancient magic. The pupils dart to them. And like a puff of smoke, they are gone, like they never existed at all. The pupils move back to Pitch, waiting.
"Jaime Bennett," the Nightmare King whispers.
.
.
It is first when it leaves Pitch falls to his knees, then on all fours, breathing hard even if his heart has been still the past thousand years.
Beside him, the Fearlings' screams have stilled.
.
.
Night comes to Burgess, at last.
So does the something.
In the Bennett household, silence is descending. Not unusual for a summer day filled with laughter and ice cream and tiny drumstick feet. Jaime Bennett's adventures during spring have all but limited his imagination; he sees pixies in the grass, fairies in the trees, and trolls in the mountains.
This is what he tells his mom when home. She pinches his sun kissed cheek and guides him into his bedroom. She puffs his pillow and folds the sheets over him, unaware of the horrors that will aspire in the next days.
Jaime closes his eyes.
It's a beginning of an end.
.
.
He sleeps, dreamless. It is odd, because the Sandman made sure to gift him with wonderful dreams each night—had he simply forgotten? Dream sand was too powerful for anything to hold it back, or darken it forever, Jack Frost had stated. So yes, he had forgotten.
The red digital clock shows 00:00; the magic hour when all things evil and magical come to life.
It is a feeling that wakens him.
Describing it is difficult. The best he can do is 'snowballs rolling inside his stomach'. All his senses are on high alert. Raw terror consumes him. Exhausted, yet unable to sleep, he heads for the kitchen for a glass of water. To reach it, he must go down the stairs and through the living room.
Finishing his business, glass in hands, he heads up again.
The door knob rattles.
Jaime turns around.
It rattles and rattles and rattles. Jaime is afraid it'll break. Through the frosted door windows, he sees a silhouette. It is far too small and far too dark to be human. And he can barely make out two holes, two big black holes that are eyes somehow staring right at him.
(Jaime has met the King of Nightmares. That thing is not Pitch Black.)
The glass of water hits the floor, shards splashing everywhere.
Jaime tries to do what his instincts scream at him too, but for a moment, it feels as if legs are cemented to the floor. Then, it disappears; allowing him to run and throw himself under the covers. He stays there until he passes out from exhaustion.
.
.
It's morning and morning means light and light means it's safe to venture out of bed.
Jaime heads down the stairs, hair's a mess, dark circles under his eyes. "I had a nightmare," is the first thing he says.
His mother, halfway out the door on her way to work, returns to hug him. He tells him what he already knows (dreams aren't real, dreams only exist in your head, dreams mean nothing) and it is strangely comforting. "I wish I could stay longer. Go and call Tobias, alright?" He nods, managing to smile. "Oh, one last thing! Please alert me or daddy when you break something, okay sweetie? Your sister could've stepped into the glass shards, you know!"
So it wasn't a dream after all.
.
.
Jaime laughs and smiles and catches bugs and takes mud bathes like the other boys, even if his energy is lower than theirs. He manages a small luxury: forgetting. Until it's midnight again.
Thud.
Like shot with lighting, Jaime sits up with the cold feeling in his stomach. The bedroom seems darker somehow, the lamp on his bedstead providing no comfort.
Thud.
There it is again! Jaime pitches his arm. It's not a dream.
Thud.
He looks around, pausing at the window.
It is so, so dark, and he can't see properly, but there's something lying in the corner. Something moving. Something breathing. 'Maybe it's a cat?' he convinces himself. "Kitty?" he tries, slipping out of bed. The fur ball stills. Somehow, it raises its ugly head far longer than any cat should and oh—
It bashes it against the glass. Again. And again. This goes on for about thirty seconds.
Then it stops, its terrifying face pressed against the window. And its eyes...
He is paralyzed. No matter how much he tries to move ('I need to move, want to move, why can't I move?!') he stays still, still like the deep sea pupils locked on him.
Jaime doesn't sleep that night.
.
.
His mother presses her hand to his forehead. "I think you might have a fever," she says. "Relax as much as you can today, alright?" Jaime nods and returns to his bedroom. The sight that greets him makes paranoia crawl like maggots up his shoulders.
The curtains flutter in the wind. An open window. An invitation.
Its inside.
(An entity has entered the room).
.
.
In the corner of the room. Near the book shelf. Half hidden by the darkness.
Jaime knows its there. He has always done, thanks to the icy feeling. Tonight, the air has thickened, too.
And he looked. He wasn't supposed to. Didn't mean to.
It was mess of limbs and hair with black eyes piercing into him like knives.
.
.
"Darling, it's just a dream. There's nothing there, I checked."
.
.
Jaime sleeps over at Tobias' house.
(In reality, it is a test. He is far too tired for a sleepover, but he needs to know if the darkness—or rather, the monster hiding in it—will follow him.)
Tobias' bedroom is smaller than Jaime's, because his family lives in an apartment, and is painted blue with clouds on. They play video games and talk about how weird girls are. Around nine, they go to bed. Tobias clicks the nightlight on at Jaime's quiet request.
Jaime can't sleep. He must know. The clock has never moved so slowly, but finally the hand rests upon XII.
A heartbeat pass.
Joy wells up in his chest... Only to vanish like tears in rain, as the air thickens, and a dark mist seeps in. The monster materializes, near Tobias' bed, but its intense gaze remains on Jaime. He wants to go home. He wants the comfort of his bed, at least, not lying in a sleeping bag on the same floor a monster resides.
He reaches up and shakes Tobias. "Can you see it?" he whispers, almost hysteric.
Tobias shakes him off, voice sour and groggy, "See what? There's nothing there. Go back to sleep."
Oh but its there alright. Staring at Jaime.
Jaime hides his face in the pillow, terrified. Almost idly, he wonders if he's gone bonkers. One look at the thing and 'No, I'm not crazy.' Then his thoughts drift to something far more horrifying.
Is it getting closer?
.
.
It is.
Nights pass.
It never makes a noise. It lies there, shrouded in darkness, long white limbs barely viewable behind the blackness, eyes lidless. Every time he looks away, he imagines it dragging itself across his floor, long limbs cracking as it moves. But he keeps his eyes closed.
Jaime knows it's by his bed now.
He knows it because he found black strands of hair there yesterday and he always wakes 00:00 with the feeling of being strangled by air... and lately, hair.
.
.
He is eating breakfast, far more quiet than usual. His parents grow worried. He wants to tell them, but what can he say?
Mommy, daddy, there's a monster in my room that only I can see and it won't go away.
.
.
Asking to sleep in his parents' bed hurts his eight year old pride. But it's gotten worse—everywhere he turns, he sees something black in the corner of his eye, and he finds black hairs everywhere. In his sheets, in his clothes, in his food.
"Of course," his father and mother said in unison.
It is warm, sleeping in-between his parents in the giant bed. As per usual, he wakes, but manages to breathe normally. The rolling snowball feeling returns in his stomach.
(there's a shadow moving under the door but mommy's here and daddy's here and nothing can hurt him)
"Mom?" he asks, half-sleeping, just to make sure. The covers shift. He feels secure arms locking around him from both sides, hugging him close. 'Mom and dad are here to watch over me...' Jaime sighs in relief. It'll be alright. Then why this rotten feeling? And why are the arms so bony?
Terror dawns on him, locking around him just like those thin, bony arms. Slowly, he opens his eyes.
It isn't his mother staring back at him.
.
.
He's still screaming when the ambulance arrives, no matter how much his parents try to calm him.
.
.
A winter spirit glides through the window. Frost appears on the glass. It vanishes again when he steps into the hospital, a frown painted on his normally so carefree face.
"Jaime?" Jack Frost calls.
Thanks to the heat, the visits to Burgess are few in the summer. Guilt drenches him like melting snow, increased as he saw the Bennett family crying in the living room. Jaime and Jack have a special, Jaime being his first true believer. Why hasn't that connection alerted him when he was in trouble?
"Jaime!"
The brown haired boy lies in a hospital bed that seems far too big for him. He mouths something, again and again and again, but Jack can't hear what it is.
The winter spirit drops onto the floor, walking the last distance.
(Usually, his footprints are frosted. The winter spirit does not see that his magic lessens when he nears Jaime.)
Still no reaction from Jaime. Jack leans down to hear what Jaime is saying.
"Marekatt."
His eyes are red and puffy and unblinking. He looks upwards towards the ceiling. His breathing is shallow.
"Marekatt."
"What can I do to help?"
"Mare—"
Jaime's lips stop moving. It looks like he tries to say something, but nothing comes. With a trembling arm, he gestures to his chest.
(on it lies a ball of black white spidery legs and soulless eyes that never leaves him and he looks up to not stare into and soon he'll suffocating if Jack doesn't get it off Jack please hear me scream please Jack—)
"Jaime," Jack says, frowning, "There's nothing there."
.
.
The end is near. Literally. Tonight, it'll appear somewhere closer than his heart.
The seventh night in the seventh month. Hadn't Jaime's thoughts been as fragmented and hysteric, maybe he'd seen the resemblance, remembering the words of his religion teacher.
Jaime is alone in the hospital room, paralyzed. The air is too thick. He knows its name. He doesn't know how, but he does. He closes his eyes. When he opens them, it is dark, and cold. There is something moving on top of him.
It CRACKS, just like he imagined, only louder and legs and arms and hands and feet wrapping around him, rubbing against him, choking him ever so sweetly, white white white black black red it opens the mouth that Jaime didn't know it had with stinking gums and rows of teeth and dangling tongues licking him in a way that's almost
Comforting!
hadn't it been for the pain and the tears and slime and mommy daddy help me it's eating me and there's hair in his mouth and is it his own hair now and he can't scream.
Can't
Scream!
And can't breathe can'tbreathe and the jaw unhinges and he looks into a black hole mewl and there's a wet sensation and teeth in his skin and his brain is shutting down and he thinks he's dying and—
And.