As soon as the words had escaped his lips, he found himself looking wide-eyed up at a mahogany coloured ceiling. Beautiful ornaments in the colours of Christmas, decorated every inch of it, and the peach light from the lamps gave a warm feeling to the room. He was laying on something soft again- fur in fact.
Jack was back on the couch with Bunny and Tooth. Gasping, he sat up. The other guardians were already awake, as his scream hadn't been audible in only his head, but also in the room.
"What happened?" Bunny exclaimed. "You alright?!" Tooth continued, with a more motherly tone to her voice as she held Jacks face with her small hands and looked into his eyes.
The boy was still breathing heavily, trying to orientate himself. Had it just been a dream? In a short moment of panic he brought a hand up to his mouth to touch his teeth, sighing out in relief as they were still there.
It puzzled the fairy and Pooka. "I'm alright…" he explained and ran a hand through his hair sighing. "I just- had a nightmare"
"You don't say?" Bunnymund allowed a sarcastic comment to slip.
His breathing had returned to normal and he chuckled off Asters comment. "Yes, I am a true Sherlock"
The chuckle made Tooth visibly relax "Do you want me to go fetch Sandy? Just to make sure you won't get plagued by more bad dreams"
"No it's alright. I'm fine now" Jack reassured with a light smile. "Alright" Tooth sighed out, obviously still worried despite the calmer smile on her face.
"Well, it ought to be time for us to return home ye'?" Bunnymund spoke as he gave Jack's shoulder a light pat and stood up.
They couldn't do much about nightmares. They happened once in a while, and not all were by Pitch, so for now, there was no reason to blow up a fire that barely was there.
"Roger" Jack made a mocking salute before he got off the couch as well, moving Tooth up with him as he did.
They said their goodbyes, Toothiana giving Jack a brief kiss and asking if he wanted to come with her to the Tooth Palace just for safety. He chuckled though, telling her that she worried far too much for her own good, to which she could only smile, and by the tap of a foot and the bat of four pair of wings, the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny was gone. Jack followed suit, but only after fetching a pen and a paper to write a small goodbye to North, and off he was, gliding through the wind with his staff, tightly held in his right hand.
As the landscapes changed beneath Jack, from snow and ice to the sea and then to land once again, the nightmare was long forgotten. Flying through the cold wind, he felt more free than ever. It was one of the moments he enjoyed the most; to be out in the open. It was his playground, his natural habitat and how he loved to fling himself about in the wind
He was in Burgess, and light as a feather he stepped down on a rooftop and observed the town below.
It was Saturday and noon: children were playing in the streets, adults out shopping or working, the worn out street lights flickered despite it was during the day and a dog zoomed past its owner successfully starting a chase into the old park.
The frost guardian chuckled at the sight, and with ease he jumped down to the crowded street. He didn't linger for long, as right as his feet had touched the cement he bounced off, jumped up on a car, then the wall of an office building and jumped yet again to one on the opposite side. He continued like this, leaving frosty crystal patterns wherever he stepped.
He kept going, never tiring out, and reached the outskirts of the town.
As he stepped down on a power cord, all lights went out. Not just the streetlights and the houses, but the sun as well. Not even the moon was up.
Jack felt his heart skip a beat, his eyes wide as he tried to find sense in this, but there was none. He looked down and saw nothing; no kids, no adults, no cars, no flickering commercial posts or barking dogs.
As he looked up, there was not a star or cloud on the sky, and no sign of there ever have been. His heart kept beating faster "What is happening...?" he mumbled to himself, finding his voice giving off a sounding echo through out Burgess.
There was a roaring silence a painful silence even… not even the wind blowing a paper down the street could be heard, because there was no wind.
Jack ran from the power cord to a housetop and then to the next again. He couldn't even use the wind himself and had to be careful with where and how he stepped. He found the fire steps on the side of the house, and rushed down, much more clumsy than he would want to be. With a staff in one hand and a heart beating in your throat, it was hard to keep a proper grip. His foot slipped and he fell the last two meters, his back aching as he hit the ground and the staff flew out of his hand and landed on the ground, giving off no sound.
With a frantic move, Jack caught the dark old stick in his hand. It was here he realized that the frost that always appeared when he touched his staff didn't appear this time. It was simply gone.
He looked on the edges of his hoodie; it was the same. His pants; same again. No frost.
Panic had started to rise in the boy, and his feet began to run. Running where to, he didn't know, he just ran.
"Anyone here?!" He shouted through out the city, hearing nothing but his voice bounce off the walls. "Anyone? Please!" he kept going. He shouted for several minutes with no reply, and minutes turned to hours.
Jack was hoarse, his throat dry and his lungs burning when he reached the forest. His feet ached with blisters, and all the pain was new to him, painfully new as his feet usually never ached and his lungs never complained. When he reached the fallen snow in the forest, he fell down on his knees and gasped for air, his voice so raspy he couldn't get a word out, and with a sudden pain coming from his temples, everything went black.
