Hey, guys! That's right, I'm actually updating within the same day for once, haha. Hope that makes you guys happy. :)

Also, Painapple: with regard to the movie mentioned in the last two chapters, you're right, most of the fandom has at least heard of this movie, so it hadn't even occurred to me to say what I'm referencing. But I did make sure to at least be clear with the details so that people who hadn't seen it could still follow the story, as a lot of the fandom hasn't seen the movie but has heard of it. The movie in question is called, quite simply, "Jack Frost" and it's the 1979 version by Rankin Bass. If you look up "Jack Frost 1979" you should be able to find it. I've found it on youtube before.

And Ronda: I'm sorry, but there has to be an end to this story. Trying to come up with a sequel though. Want to help me brainstorm? I do need a little help for it, haha.

Anyway, hope you all enjoy this chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own ROTG. And my disclaimers have been getting lamer and lamer with time. Should I give up? Probably. But I shall nevaaaaaaaah give in!

"A mother held her new baby and very slowly rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while she held him, she sang:

I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
my baby you'll be."

It seemed Jamie hadn't heard whether I approved of him reading me a story or not, but I was relieved to see that he had gone on with doing so anyway. And at the same time, saddened. I had no idea why this was. Shouldn't I be rejoicing at finally hearing a friendly voice after all this time? If I wanted to cry from hearing Jamie's voice, I should be crying tears of joy, not of sorrow. I was so messed up, it wasn't even funny.

Jamie was right about this being one of Sophie's favorite stories. I had been around to listen to him read it to her sometimes. He had always sung the lullaby aloud, using a tune his mother had made up when he was young, and then he passed it onto his sister. And now he was passing it onto me. That thought alone made me gulp, earning a funny look from Brent, which I tried to ignore. He thought I was crazy enough right then without him knowing that I was still listening to the voice that only I could hear.

I listened in complete silence as Jamie continued with the story as the baby grew through his entire childhood and then even into adulthood with his mother being the crazy stalker she was while always singing this lullaby. Only Robert Munsch could write a story about such a completely endearing psycho lady and have it go over as phenomenally well as this story had. I'd heard this story a million times by now, but this time, when the man returned the favor of singing the lullaby to his mother, I choked up. I don't know why, but I did. Something about that gesture just got to me that time.

And as if that reaction wasn't strong enough, after Jamie finished the book, his attention directed back toward me again, and he picked up the same tune once again.

"I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living,
My best friend you'll be."

If Brent hadn't thought I was crazy yet from the last occurrence of my reacting to Jamie's voice, he definitely thought it now as I completely lost control of my emotions. Tears flooded out and hung off my cheeks in long icicles that I did not want to think about how I was going to remove later, since prying ice off of one's skin is somewhat painful.

Why on Earth would I cry over Jamie being kind to me? Jamie was just a kind person. That was just the way he always was. I was overreacting. I definitely was. But gosh, I'd missed his voice so much. Even as I thought about it, I shivered and started crying again.

Between sobs, I raised my eyes to the heavens where it sounded like Jamie's voice was coming from, and I said, "Don't leave me, Jamie. Please keep talking to me. I can hear you." Naturally, Brent still thought I was crazy, but it was worth it since Jamie obliged and continued talking about whatever occurred to him, whether he heard a response from me or not. Which he never did. I honestly had no idea how he was getting his voice into this world, but it didn't sound like he was trapped. I breathed a sigh of relief that at least someone was okay, despite all this nonsense.

Brent, Amanda, and I decided that we'd sat in one place long enough and should probably get going before Chaos got upset at us. He'd strangely been rather reserved after that last challenge and had given us time to recuperate from it, but I didn't want to count on Chaos's integrity more than I had to. Especially since I had no idea if the guy actually had integrity or if he'd just gotten busy hatching up new evil plots to do to me. It was better safe than sorry.

I don't know why I'd assumed that moving would cause us to experience less pain, considering that Chaos always seemed to dole it out whether we were moving or not. Maybe I just liked the illusion of being in control. Though once I started sneezing, I realized just how out of control I had gotten.

You see, I don't sneeze. Not often, anyway. Being a force of nature comes with its perks, like not reacting to pollen, dust, or mold the way most humans do. If those things made me sneeze, I would have an awful time being the spirit of winter since I have to ride the wind every day to get where I need to go.

So when I started sneezing, not once, not twice, but over and over again, I started to worry. This was not normal behavior for me, and it was bound to result in something unpleasant if it kept up. Brent and Amanda didn't realize how dire the situation was and were just chuckling at how I'd gotten myself caught in a sneezing fit. I think Amanda just liked the little mini flurries I sneezed out every time. I supposed I would have been amused too if the circumstances had been different.

Their tune changed with the appearance of the first crack. It had appeared after a particularly bad sneeze had wracked my body, and I'd felt a piece of my cheek crack apart as thought I were literally made of ice. I reached up to brush the crack and shivered in fright as it felt it graced across my cheek. This was not good. Not good at all. I attempted to hold in my next sneeze.

Naturally, it didn't work. I've never known how to hold in a sneeze. And now that the cracking had started, it began to spread with each new sneeze. Soon I had cracks all over my face and neck. What would happen if I didn't stop sneezing? Would I literally fall apart?

I prepared to sneeze again, helpless against this awful force of nature that I was not immune to this time, when Brent finally came to the rescue. "Say 'pineapple'."

"Pineapple?" I repeated, not sure why I was supposed to do that. I blinked, realizing what had just happened and confused about why it had. My sneeze had gone away. "Okay, what just happened?"

He shrugged. "Eh, saying 'pineapple' at the right time can prevent a sneeze. It's just a weird trick I've picked up since I have awful spring allergies."

"Great," I said, sniffling to help my nose not to run and freeze into awkward icicles. "So the cure to my sneezing fit is a metaphorical dash of pineapple. How random can you get?"

He shrugged again, seeming to enjoy my confusion at the stupid life hack. "Hey, you need to ask Chaos if you want to know just how random you can get."

"No thanks," I said, just before another sneeze snuck up on me before I could remember to say "pineapple". A crack spread onto my collar bone. Great. Even with the brilliant life hack, I was going to have to pay more attention to what I was doing if I didn't want this thing to spread further.

Brent seemed to see my struggle with this and suggested that we stop and rest so I didn't tax my system more than necessary. I tried to object, but a couple more sneezes silenced that issue. I really did need to stop forcing my body to do anything if I wanted to make this fit go away completely rather than just postponing the inevitable with a dash of pineapple.

The sneezes were becoming more insistent, and therefore so were my pineappular utterings. I began to say "pineapple" even when I didn't feel a sneeze coming on yet, just in case. Occasionally a sneeze snuck through anyway, but I was generally holding them off. If nothing else, it at least bought me a little time to converse with Brent and Amanda.

"What's gonna happen if you fall apart, Jack?" said Amanda.

I shook my head and sniffed, then shrugged. "I really don't know. But—" I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. "Chaos hasn't tried to kill any of us yet. Perhaps he's trying to teach me something, I don't know."

"So what should we do if that happens?" said Brent. I was a little unnerved that the great thinker named Brent didn't already have a plan in mind about how to deal with me if falling apart was indeed in Chaos's plan, but I supposed I shouldn't have expected such a thing of him. Who makes a plan on how to react to their friend falling apart?

"Well…" I scratched my head. "I guess you should just try to find the pieces and put them back together. It seems it would work by Chaos's logic."

"A-Alright," he said. "We'll—We'll try." He gulped, and I felt sorry for the poor guy. I wished I could just make things make a little more sense to him for once. It had to be hard to deal with the world being senseless when the only thing you knew before was logic and common sense.

"Pineapple! Pineapple pineapple!" The sneezes had escalated to a point where even shouting the magic word multiple times before the onset of a sneeze didn't seem to do any good now, and the cracks had reached my legs by then. Just a little further and my toes would be cracking apart as well.

Amanda ran over to me and threw her arms around me. "I don't want you to fall apart!"

I returned her gentle little hug with one of my own, smiling as I replied. "It's okay." I stroked her hair, hoping it would calm her down at least a tiny bit. "I'll find a way to come back to you if that happens."

Hardly two minutes had passed since her hug, and I had sneezed several more times, which had brought the cracks all the way to the tips of my toes. I didn't know what one more large sneeze would do, and to be safe I'd let go of Amanda and went a short distance from the group. The last thing I wanted to have happen was for one of them to get impaled by a flying shard of Jack.

I felt a sneeze coming on, and I knew it would be huge, but I repeated my pineapple mantra as much as possible, hoping to stave it off for at least a few more minutes. Anything to delay the inevitable.

"Jack!" Brent jumped to his feet. "J-Just in case this is…" He gulped and looked away shamefully, as though thinking of the possibility that I might be dying from this was a traitorous act. He then looked back up at me. "I-I just… wanted you to know that I—I think I believe you. That you're Jack Frost, I mean."

A giant smile split my face at hearing these words. Stubborn Brent, giving in and believing in something intangible? This was profound. "And Amanda?" I said.

He waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, she never questioned it. As soon as you said that was your name, she just accepted it like it was nothing."

I laughed despite knowing that it was probably a bad idea at the moment. It just felt good to finally be acknowledged for who I was, even if this was possibly the last time I'd be able to hear it. And if there was any chance that this might be the last time I'd be able to laugh, then I definitely wanted to take advantage of this opportunity while I had it.

Suddenly the sneeze sprung up and took me while I wasn't prepared, leaving a resounding echo of "ACHOO!" across the plain. My body responded in kind by shattering into a thousand pieces and sending each piece flying off in a different direction. Thankfully all the pieces avoided Brent and Amanda, but I wasn't so lucky. Every piece of me embedded itself in a different location throughout the land of Chaos, and I was conscious of every single location I was in.

It would have been easier to have died from that experience or to have at least lost consciousness until Brent and Amanda figured out what to do, but no. Chaos had to make sure I was fully aware of everything that happened. Why, I didn't know. I sure hoped he had a reasonable explanation for putting me through such nonsense.

As soon as they'd recovered from the shock of seeing their friend fly apart, Brent and Amanda started scrambling to pick up any piece of me they could see lying around. There were a lot of shards though, and some of them had drifted pretty far from where I had been standing when the colossal sneeze of doom had hit. This was going to take a while.

In the meantime, I decided to do the only thing I could do and observe my surroundings from every single vantage point. Even though most of my body were not eyes or ears, I strangely found myself able to see and hear everything at every location of one of my shards. This was probably Chaos's whole intent. To get me to just stop talking and pay attention for a while. Well, now he had my attention. All of it.

Perhaps he hadn't realized just how brilliant of a plan he'd come up with, because as Jamie's voice continued to permeate the atmosphere with cries of, "I miss you, Jack. Please come back!" Chaos reacted in a way I never would have expected. He began to sob pitifully, wrenching my heart open and spilling out all the warm fuzzies everywhere. Whether Chaos was evil or not, I couldn't hate someone who had a soft spot for children.

"Jamie, please stop!" cried Chaos. "You're breaking my heart!"

That was when it hit me. Chaos could hear Jamie! I really wasn't crazy. I had no idea why neither Brent nor Amanda could hear him, but Chaos had definitely confirmed my suspicions on that one. For once, I was pretty sure this wasn't one of his tricks. He hadn't actually expected me to pick up on that.

I didn't know how to communicate when I was just a bunch of shards in various locations, but if I could see and hear everywhere I was, then maybe I could talk through each shard if I focused well enough. I remembered how Pitch had accidentally taught us all a lesson about how this strange land worked and how we could wield some of Chaos's magic if we willed it strongly enough. I projected my focus into one of my shards and yelled out to the sky. "Chaos, you can hear Jamie! Why can you hear him, but Brent and Amanda can't?"

I had been absolutely right in assuming that Chaos hadn't realized I'd been watching, because he yelped at my sudden intrusion and tried to brush off my question with a simple, "What? I didn't—you're just crazy."

"Uh huh," I said, not buying that excuse in the slightest. "I think you just have a soft spot for kids."

"What? No. I don't—no. I don't like anybody, because I'm all evil and stuff."

"Right," I said, still not buying it. Amanda was absolutely right. This guy wasn't really evil, though I had no idea whether he was good either. I had yet to learn his motivation. "Chaos, just tell me what you're trying to do already. We could help it happen faster if we at least knew what you were looking for, and probably with a lot less pain."

"Wha—no—I can't—because—" For some reason, it seemed that my offer to actually cooperate with him had never occurred to him as a possibility, and it had completely thrown him off balance. This was new. I'd never expected to see this side of the guy. Now I was starting to see a vulnerable little person under the tough exterior who just needed some help. I supposed there was a slight chance that he could be Brent, however unlikely that seemed.

"Just tell us why we're here!" I said. "We can't help you unless we know the truth."

A panicked gasp, followed by a hasty, "You'll have to catch me first," caught my ear. I would have been quite disillusioned by this if one of my other shards hadn't happened to pick up a shadow darting suddenly across the landscape. It was like someone was moving fast to try and find someplace to get away and hide.

I needed to get Brent's and Amanda's help on this. I focused my attention into a shard that Brent was holding and said, "Brent, I know it's crazy that I can talk through this, but just keep your cool, okay? It's just another weird thing Chaos is doing." Brent had yelped and jumped back when I'd first spoken, but he recovered quickly enough. We'd seen weirder in this land.

I then continued on in my speech. "I can see everywhere in this landscape right now, and I just saw what I think was Chaos making a break for it on those dunes to the west."

Brent blinked for several as he processed this information, then turned his attention back to my shard and said, "So you can tell us where Chaos is?"

"If I see him, yes."

"And you can tell us where your shards are?"

I would have smacked myself for not thinking of that if I'd been able to physically move. How stupid of me for not even considering that as a possibility. Telling them where I was in all my pieces would speed up the collection process considerably. And make us just that much more likely to catch Chaos.

"Now why didn't I think of that?" I huffed, indignant at my stupid self. "Yes, I can tell you what the landscape looks like around each shard, and I think you can find me that way. And try to track down Chaos too so we can beat the truth out of him. You up for it?"

"Hell yeah!" he said. "I'm as ready as ever to get out of this crazy place."

"Bad Brent!" said Amanda as she shook her finger at the boy. "That's a naughty word.

Brent and I laughed as they continued to pick up the pieces one by one. Things were coming to a head, and I sensed that something was going to burst very soon. The tables were just about to turn on Chaos.

Oh, boy, now Chaos is in for it. *chuckles*

Anyway, I know the pain of dealing with cliffhangers during the climax, which we've just entered. I'll happily upload the next chapter the instant a few reviews come in rather than waiting for an ideal time of day, and I'll keep doing that with all the other chapters just so you don't have to bite your nails for too long. ;)

Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and see you next time!