Chapter 2

The first thing Jack noticed as he dropped down into the dark tunnel was the knot of anxiety in his stomach intensifying as he descended. The second thing he noticed as his bare feet landed on the cool stone at the bottom was that the ground was a lot more uneven than he remembered. The tunnel slanted steeply away at the base and Jack pitched forward unexpectedly when he touched down. "Whoa!"

Gratefully, what must have been a stalagmite growing up from the bedrock stopped his awkward flail and he clung to it, breathing hard. Calm down, hetold himself. You just didn't expect that. Everything's ooookay.

It the tunnel was ill-lighted, which really didn't help the nervous thudding in his ears any, so Jack used his staff to cast a blue glow on the path before him. Silence clung to the walls of this place like moss. Jack took a deep breath and carefully tip toed his way to the mouth of the tunnel. Why did I think this was a good idea again? His every nerve was on end here.

Pitch's lair was bigger than he remembered. It loomed before him a vast labyrinth of fractional bridges, twisted staircases and giant pillars carved into walls of stone. Jack had a sense he was standing in a post-apocalyptic vision of Venice, Spain even now. He knew the lair was deep underground and the tunnels branched out, but it didn't seem plausible that it connected that far across the globe.

And then there were the giant cages made of rustic metal and mahogany wood hanging from the cavern's ceiling. It was a relief to see the ominous cells void of prisoners this time around.

"Hello…?" The frost spirit's voice echoed weakly in the large space. No answer. "Pitch?" Nothing. Jack floated up a few levels and landed on one of the bridges to nowhere, his staff at the ready incase the Nightmare King wasn't in the mood to chat. Alert blue eyes scanned the walls and corners for any moving shadows that might tell him he wasn't alone. Still nothing. The place was a mausoleum. There was no current of air to swing a cage, no shifting of nightmares in the shadows, and no discernable sounds save for the occasional dripping of mineral water from above….

"Pitch? You down here?" Jack tried calling out again as he leapt about the Nightmare King's cavern freezing the walls and stairs with his staff as he passed them just because. "I guess I expected you to be here when I came to visit…" he said more to himself now than Pitch. As expected, a response came in the form of silence.

The frost spirit huffed out a breath of disappointment and sat down on the ledge of the highest bridge letting his feet dangle over the edge. Well there went his opportunity to sate his curiosity about Pitch Black. He tapped the brick absentmindedly with the butt of his staff and coated it with ice, which formulated into large hanging icicles below him. This place could really do with a makeover. He mused.

It occurred to him then that the Nightmare King hadn't really been trapped down here all these months; that he was probably out collecting fear as he always had. He could just be flying under the radar. That, or something bad had happened to Pitch when his nightmares attacked him and—

The anxiety Jack Frost felt when he first came in had dissipated by now and was replaced-strangely enough-with a pang of empathy and something akin to worry. Wait. Why am I worrying about Pitch Black? Let's put a stop to that emotion right now. He chastised himself. The last thing he needed was to make up scenarios based on his own wild imagination. He'd come down here for facts.

"If you're wondering why I came down here after so long, I thought maybe we could talk. You know, instead of….fight." He looked over his shoulder just in case. Pitch did like to sneak up on people. He was damned good at it too. Still no Nightmare King.

Jack sighed and pushed off the bridge, free falling twenty or so meters before touching down atop Pitch's version of the Globe at the center of the lair. The tiny lights on the metal continents stood out in the darkness, strong and unwavering. Jack smiled and ran a finger over a few of them before heading back to the tunnel entrance he'd come from. Pitch would have to return to his underground lair sometime, right? And when he did, Jack would be here to try again.

Somewhere in Russia

The child was already falling into a giant cereal bowl full of hungry leeches by the time Sandman realized he had created a nightmare.

The slimy black creatures were thrashing about in the oversized bowl. They snapped at the air and each other with suckers filled with razor sharp teeth. The boy screamed as he fell head first toward the bowl his eyes wide with fear.

Sandman quickly dusted the bad dream with enough golden Dreamsand to transform the hideous parasites into bed-sized marshmallows, on which the boy landed safely and bounced several times before coming to rest on the squishy cereal chunks. The boy wiped his face with his pajama sleeves and blinked a few times before giggling at the giant rainbow marshmallows all around him.

Sandman drew in a deep breath of relief and pulled out of the dream as soon as the little boy's fear dissipated.

Back in the real world, the Guardian of Sleep and Dreams hovered over the sleeping boy's bed and watched the simplified version of the new happy dream play out above his head. The Dreamsand shone golden and bright, depicting the little boy jumping happily from marshmallow to marshmallow like he would a trampoline. Sandman smiled down at the boy and left him to sleep when he was satisfied all was well again.

What had happened just now? Sandy wasn't certain. But he suspected it had something to do with the pain in his shoulder blade. He reached back to touch the place where the Nightmare King had pierced him with an arrow of his own twisted black nightmare sand so many months ago. Sandy could handle the accompanying pain of the wound even now, as it usually subsided quickly when he shifted the sand of his body, but the fear that flared up with it was always unexpected. It had the power to randomly turn his Dreamsand into nightmare sand, and it wasn't the first time it had happened since Pitch had shot him. Tonight had been the worst case of his sand disobeying him yet….

Sandman rode a golden cloud back up into the sky where he could once again survey his streams of Dreamsand as they touched down over sleeping children everywhere. He would make extra sure the nightmare flare ups would not happen again tonight.

The clouds above the small Russian town parted to reveal the brightest moon Sandy had seen in a long time. He bathed in it's glow and heard the reassuring voice of the Man in the Moon tell him he was doing a good job of watching over the children. Sandy wanted to believe his old friend, but the residual fear he'd been tainted with tugged at his conscience and he knew he would have to tell the Guardians about his problem eventually.

"Sanderson." A feminine voice approached him from the southern sky. Sandman turned to find Toothiana land gracefully on his cloud. Her gossamer wings paused their otherwise constant fluttering as she touched down for a rest.

Sandy formed an exclamation mark followed by a question mark above his head upon seeing her so unexpectedly. She put a small, feathered hand on his shoulder and caught her breath. "The children, they're not sleeping. I can't collect their teeth because they are all awake at night when my fairies come. Have you noticed anything?"

Sandy shook his head no. He hadn't noticed anything beyond his own struggle to keep his Dreamsand in check, honestly. But he was never one to back down from an adventure and Tooth knew she could count on his help.

"Come with me? I'd really like to get things back to normal as soon as possible. You know me, always go, go, go." She rose up from the cloud, reenergized by their brief one-sided conversation. Sandman nodded, fashioned a pair of sandy goggles over his eyes and formed a makeshift dragon beneath himself. Together the two Guardians flew off to solve the mystery of the sleepless children.

As it turned out, the insomnia plaguing youth in the Eastern countries had spread to some of the more Western ones as well. Tooth and Sandy had spent much of the night following the Mini Teeth fairies around Europe and curing the sleep-deprived children they pointed out. Each time a child sat awake in their room Sandy would make a game out of sabotaging them with a snowball of golden sand. (He had picked up a few tricks from Jack Frost apparently.) The sand would knock them out before they noticed the fairies enter the room and slip beneath their pillows for their teeth.

Together, the Guardians and Mini Teeth gathered most of the childhood memories they had missed in only a few short hours. Still, there were children who had given up believing in the Tooth Fairy when they realized she had never come to pay them a visit, and Tooth felt the pinch of her failure at the end of their rounds.

"We weren't fast enough. We were too late and I let them down…." Toothiana held a box of teeth in her hands and kneeled on the rooftop of one suburban townhouse. There was an empty space left in the otherwise full container of tiny teeth.

Sandman joined her on the rooftop. He sat next to her with legs crossed and a look of concern reflected in his yellow-eyed gaze. She was always so hard on herself….

He flashed images of several teeth and pillows above his head, indicating there would be more opportunities to collect teeth from the children who had lost faith this time around.

The baby teeth that joined them squeaked their agreement with the Guardian of Dreams and buzzed around their Queen reassuringly.

Tooth smiled at her friends and looked to the positive side of things, "Thank you for all your help, everyone. We did great tonight." She tucked the tooth box in her side satchel and said to Sandy, "I think we can handle it from here. You've been a big help in getting the kids to sleep again. I don't know what we would have done if—"

She paused, crystal eyes wide with some secret knowledge.

Sandy and the Minis waited patiently for her to finish her train of thought. It seemed her train of thought had completely fallen off the tracks because she took off like a shot in the direction of a four-story apartment building a few blocks away and disappeared through an open window. Sandy exchanged looks with the fairies before hopping on his cloud to investigate whatever it was that had yanked Tooth from them so suddenly.

"What is that?!"

Sandy heard the Fairy Queen shriek from inside the building. There, at the foot of the bed of a little girl no older than six lingered the creepiest looking woman-creature they had ever laid eyes on. The figure was humanoid, but her arms were freakishly disproportionate to her body as though they had been stretched twice their length by the use of some kind of medieval torture device. Her hair was long and dark and disheveled, and it covered most of her pale face, shoulders and torso. The freakish figure was thin and dressed in ragged jeans and a white long-sleeved shirt that really wasn't white anymore. It could have been littered with dirt or bloodstains, Tooth couldn't tell which. In short, this creature in front of them very well could have crawled straight out of a Japanese horror film. It was a good thing that spirits did not need to sleep on a regular basis because Toothiana knew she would not be sleeping anytime soon. The Mini Teeth that followed them into the room dove into her feathers out of fright.

The woman-creature's freakishly long arms were stretched across the length of the bed and vein-spoiled hands held the little girl fast by the sides of her head.

When Tooth entered the room the creepy woman's neck had snapped to the window. Bloodshot eyes locked on the large fairy and the figure released her hold on the child, retracting her arms from the small body in surprise. She seemed to consider whether or not to attack Toothiana with them when the Sandman appeared at her side.

That was the woman-creature's cue to leave. She did so just as Sandy lashed out at her with a glowing sand whip. She seemed to dissolve into her own hair before the weapon cracked down on it and the hair fell to the floor with a sickening plop and melted into the floorboards.

Tooth stayed where she was by the window, hugging herself and not blinking. Sandy reached down to pick up the remaining strands of dark hair from the floor. There was nothing unusual about the hair, except that the rest of it had just disappeared in front of their eyes. The ability to teleport from one place to another through magical means was a trait of powerful ghouls and spirits, to be sure. Whoever they had just encountered was not normal on any level.

"She's awake."

Tooth was right. The little girl was lying in bed clinging to her blankets. Her big brown eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. Dark circles appeared beneath them like she hadn't slept in days.

Sandy and Tooth hovered over the bed hoping to elicit some reaction out of the small believer. "Hello, little one. It's okay now." Tooth soothed, in a calming voice.

The little girl didn't seem to register them at all. There was no recognition, no flutter of eyelashes, no look of relief on that innocent face staring blankly ahead. Her cheeks were wet however, and Tooth flinched at the sight of someone so precious crying.

"Oh no, she—she doesn't see us. I could feel something was wrong from the rooftop…."

The Guardian of Sleep pressed a granular palm across the child's forehead and willed her back to the land of dreams. He felt her relax into the pillow once more.

A feeling of renewal filled Sandman then. It was slight -barely noticeable even- but this one child's dreaming had given him back some of the strength he hadn't noticed was missing. It had been happening all night. Each time his Dreamsand sent another affected child back to sleep a part of the Guardian had been rejuvenated. Sandy considered how distracted with his own problems he had to have been to not notice what Tooth clearly had.

"Well, I think we found what has been keeping the kids awake." Tooth tucked the little girl's hair behind her ear lovingly and wiped her wet cheeks.

How long had that creepy woman been attacking children like this? Not being able to sleep at night tested the kids' faith in the Sandman's existence as well as prevented Tooth from collecting their memories in time.

Another bright feather fell to the floor. One of the fairies flew down to collect it. She tried in vain to push it back into Tooth's shoulder where it had come from. The Fairy Queen nuzzled her helper appreciatively then shooed her away again. The tiny fairy squeaked, hugged the feather protectively and joined her sisters near the window with it.

Sandy held up the hair he'd collected from the floor and flashed a magnifying glass above his head.

"You think we should go after that thing?" Tooth didn't like that idea. Especially considering the look of the long-armed woman still gave her the chills. And that hair-!

Sandy pressed a fist into his palm with a stern look on his usually friendly face. They had found the culprit spreading the sleeplessness in children and it was his job to go after this new threat. The Man in the Moon had chosen them for a reason and Sanderson Mansnoozie was not about to let him down.

The Fairy Queen recognized determination in the little man when she saw it. "Okay, let me get a couple things, first."