Chapter 53: Macabre Memories Final Part
In the silence of the house, Jack's grunts were as loud as claps of thunder. Curled up on the dusty floor, he tried for the upteenth time to pick the lock to his restraints.
Unfortunately, Black Ice knew more about bonds than most people learn in a lifetime. The shackles around Jack's ankles and wrists were made of Lutetium, arguably the hardest metal in the world. How his other half had managed to find it, Jack would never know.
But he did know this: it was impossible to even freeze the metal and shatter it, especially without his power.
Oh, and Black Ice had taken Jack's staff away. Yet another thing to add to the growing list of problems.
As if on cue, the hairclip he'd managed to find on the floor snapped in half like a rotten stick.
Jack breathed in through his teeth, "Fuck." He threw the clip away, listening to it clatter across the room. As that last blossom of hope shriveled up within him, the winter sprite curled up within himself. He pressed himself against the wall, somehow feeling safer this way. Beneath this false blanket of security, he felt beyond demoralized.
He was in enemy territory, shackled up, and with no staff. He might be able to conjure up some power with a little luck, but it was much easier to have his staff. Either way, he had to find some way out of here. Even an idiot could guess that his comrades would be attacked, and without him, their chances of survival were shaky. They'd just lost a competent fighter, and everyone was still gloomy about it.
Indeed. Tooth was dead...
Jack blinked back tears and ran a hand through his silvery-white hair.
The door creaked open, snapping the boy out of his mournful thoughts. He looked up sharply, ready to glare at his other half...
...and stopped.
It wasn't Black Ice. It was a girl, a bit on the short side, with a childlike body. She wore a black cloak that had been patched together, a gray-scaled bodysuit, and clawed gloves. Her waist-long russet hair curtained her face, making it impossible to read her expression.
Jack's moment of awe vanished. He snarled and jumped to his feet, holding his hand out threateningly. A layer of diamond-like ice formed, glowing white with energy. The guardian of fun was shocked that it was working this well; normally, he was next to powerless without his staff. He could only whip up a limited amount of energy. But this was the first time it had worked so well.
Oh, well. Better take advantage of it while it lasted.
He growled, "The Sweet Serpent." Those three words were enough to make his heart burn with hatred. It was because of this creature that everything had gone up in flames: Sophie and Jamie were stuck in an orphanage, Tooth was dead, Molly was dead, and the belief of the guardians was weakening with every passing hour.
She had to pay.
The energy in his hand transformed into a winter-cold bolt, white as a falling star. Its end was sharper than any razor, and it was aimed at the Sweet Serpent's throat.
The girl blinked sadly at the weapon, like she'd been expecting it. "I guess we're no longer friends."
Jack was so surprised he actually lowered his hand.
"After all, you said we'd be 'best friends no matter what'."
Jack dropped his hand, which quickly went back to normal. The bolt vanished into thin air. "So...you're not...Melinda?" His voice softened, "You're still alive...Lucy."
The girl looked ready to cry. "Jack..." She shook her head, "The Sweet Serpent, and Lucy...they're both me, y'know?"
Jack's icy-blue eyes in realization, "Lucy...you mean...you remember?"
He thought back on that horrible day in the Realm, when the last thing he'd seen was the girl flying hundreds of feet above him, her face streaked with blood and tears.
"All of it?"
"I..." Melinda hugged herself and shivered, even though the room was not cold, "I'm not sure. Some of the memories...are all fuzzy. But I remember..."
The guardians, all rounded up in the Pole.
"Jack's friends..."
A ten-year-old Jamie throwing a snow ball at her, then ducking to avoid hers.
"My friends..."
She withered like a flower, "I..."
Jack felt his anger die out. He'd never seen someone look so lost before. Even though a small voice in his head screamed at him that this was his enemy, he found himself ignoring it. In that moment, she didn't look like the twisted psycho who'd chopped his friend's head off.
She just looked like a scared little girl.
He reached out, "Lucy..."
She batted his hand away, not roughly. Jack tensed, his eyebrows flying up his forehead.
Melinda kept her head bowed, "No, don't pity me. I don't deserve it. Especially now," She held up her serpent skull mask and placed it over her face, "I'm going to help my father. He's fighting with the guardians right now."
"How can you go back to that man?" Jack all but shouted, "He's the damn Boogeyman!"
Melinda's face darkened. "He was there for me when no one else was." She spun on her heel and marched out, her hands fisted at her sides.
But not before Jack spotted a single, solitary tear roll down her face.
When it splashed onto the floor, its echo boomed through his mind like a tsunami wave. Jack's body went numb; he couldn't move, talk, or even blink. He could only watch as the girl he used to know walked off to fight his friends.
Crying.
Jack soughed and ran a hand through his hair, "Don't cry..."
His fingers curled around his white tousled. "Dammit..."
Two images clashed together in his mind: Melinda, the grinning maniac, and Lucy, the book-loving girl.
"The Sweet Serpent...why did it have to be born?" The winter sprite shed tears of his own, "Lucy, why're you...?"
A chuckling interrupted his train of thought. Behind him, Black Ice stood with a casual smirk on his face. With his inky armor, he looked like a knight of darkness.
"If you really wanna know..."
Jack turned around in time to see Black Ice holding his hands up, "...Let me tell you everything about that girl."
BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions of grass-green and bubblegum-pink filled the night sky. Bunnymund hunched over, panting as his bloodshot eyes stared ahead. Dead Night Mares lay at his feet like crumpled shadows. The dark hill was silent, and for a blissful, brief moment, the Pooka thought he'd finally taken out the Nightmare King.
Oh, no.
A black harpoon, gleaming like the Devil's grin, flew towards him at breakneck speed. "Crickey!" The Pooka barely had time to move before the harpoon impaled the stone behind him. Bunny cringed at how deeply the weapon had dug its way in.
Then, the intimidation quickly morphed into anger. With bared teeth, he spun around to see a tall, lithe figure standing among the fading smoke.
Pitch arched an invisible brow, clearly unimpressed. "Is that all you've got?"
"Hardly!" Bunny whipped out his boomerangs and leapt towards the Boogeyman. Moving faster than the wind, he swung his leg across Pitch's face. Crying in pain, Pitch doubled over; Bunny took that as an occasion to kick Pitch off the small cliff they were standing on. The Boogeyman rolled down the rocky side like a rotten log.
"Ha!" Bunny shouted, "You ain't gettin' away this time!" He jumped down, ready to smash Pitch's skull in...
...when Pitch looked up, his eyes glowing gold. He slapped his hands on the dirt; Nightmare Sand crawled out and whipped the Pooka, sending him soaring. Pitch barely had time to watch; other whips, gold ones, reached out and coiled themselves around his middle. Next thing he knew, Pitch was tossed in the air like a rag doll before being swung across the field. He rolled across the muddy snow, groaning.
Sandy stepped out, his chubby face nearly red with anger. As Pitch's cuts healed on the spot, he smirked, "Well, Sandman. Nice to know you're still in shape."
"He not zee only vun!"
Pitch looked up to see a five-foot sword come down on him. "Aah!" He rolled across the slush, avoiding being sliced by half a millimeter. Bunny slammed into him, sending him face-first on the ground. The three guardians glared down at him, hatred burning in their eyes like hellfire.
"I do not know vhat made you poke your head out from ground," North rumbled, "But, no more! I vill not let you threaten children!"
He swung his sword down, but the silvery metal was met with black onyx. North growled as Pitch stood up, his scythe pressed against the blade. Bunny and Sandy quickly backed away as the two men engaged in a swordfight.
North pulled his blade away and swung it, but Pitch ducked and took a jump back. He grinned, looking half-crazed. "En garde!" He shouted as he lunged.
The two men became blurs, with a furious clashing of metal. Bunny and Sandy didn't know which way to look, until finally, someone screamed with pain. Black blood gushed out.
Bunny smiled, "Gotcha."
Pitch crumpled in a gasping heap on the snow, clutching his side. This wasn't a superficial injury like his previous ones: the blade had sunk in deep, scraping the bones and cutting through the organs. As blood dribbled down the side of Pitch's mouth, he glared at his opponent. North aimed the sword, now streaked with Pitch's blood, right at his throat.
But Pitch only returned that cold gaze. "Strike, Nickolas." He stated, "Strike true."
North looked slightly surprised at the surrender, but he decided to grant the Boogeyman his wish. This was what needed to be done. For the sake of the children of the world, Pitch had to die.
As his blade pressed against Pitch's throat, an outraged hiss cut through the air.
Before North's eyes could even widen, a black serpent the size of a wardrobe slammed into him, its fangs flashing. Sandy and Bunny screamed (well, Bunny did) and fought their way through the Nightmare snakes. As Bunny leapt to avoid being bitten, he glanced up at Pitch.
A figure stood in front of him, protectively.
It wore a ripped black cape with the hood up, moving softly in the wind. It wore a serpent's skull that hid most of its face. Through the empty sockets, golden eyes gleamed in the dim light. Pitch looked at the figure with a mixture of surprise, gratitude, and relief.
North, holding the stump where his arm used to be, stared at the figure almost fearfully. The words left his lips like a ghost's whisper. "The Sweet Serpent."
The figure grinned, "Kssh."
A notebook was dumped on Jack's lap. "This has everything you need to know. She's been writing in it for hours." Black Ice filled him in, a playful smile on his pale face. "Apparently, she thought that there was a good chance she'd be killed tonight. So, she decided to stow away her memories."
"She..." Jack pushed the diary away. "I don't wanna read it."
Black Ice arched a black brow, "I thought you wanted to know?"
"I do, but..."
"But?" Black Ice prompted.
Jack sighed, saying nothing.
Black Ice's smile grew. "I know why. I am you, after all." He leaned against the wall, "You know that you're the one who turned the Mistress's world upside down, but you don't want to look deeper in the matter because you don't think you'd be able to deal with the guilt afterwards." His smile vanished, "Well, too bad. If I wanted to, I could kill you. Now."
Jack scoffed, "Yeah, right. You can't kill me without killing yourself."
"Not really." Black Ice held up his hand and flexed it, "I have a body separate from yours. So, yes, I'm a part of you. But even if one of us dies, it won't affect the other. Think about it: I was killed once, and it didn't affect you."
Jack winced, realizing how in danger he really was. If he didn't 'behave', Black Ice was going to butcher him. "Yeah."
Black Ice's smile returned. "Good, so we're on the same page." He leaned forward and opened the notebook, "Let's start from the beginning, shall we?"
Before Jack could protest, the contents overflooded his consciousness, sweeping him into the past.
"Jack wasn't a hero. He wasn't a knight in shining armor.
He was merely the source of all my suffering."
A doctor poked his head in, "Mr. and Mrs. Rivera?"
"Oh, yes!" Violet jumped to her feet, wiping her eyes (and smearing mascara onto her cheekbones). "Mr. Rivera is my younger brother." She looked at the doctor pleadingly, "Well? How are they?"
"I..." The doctor began to speak, then sighed and massaged his temples. Not a good sign. Lucy braced herself for the worst.
"I'm afraid..." The doctor shook his head sadly, "They had a pretty bad fall, those two. Even if they were in the car, they had a sixty-meter fall and landed on the roof. Into a tree. Both your brother and sister-in-law are suffering from severe bleeding of the brain. We don't think they'll make it 'til morning. I am truly sorry."
The two females reacted in the opposite way that was expected of them. Violet began to cry while Lucy just closed her eyes, refusing to so much as whisper.
Jack stood not too far away, his eyes wide. He watched the sorrow darken the little girl's face, and his heart felt like leads as realization kicked it: 'I did this.'
Mindlessly, he reached out to put a hand on Lucy's shoulder. He wanted to comfort her, to do something to ease her pain...
His hand went through the girl's shoulder as if it were smoke. Jack froze, absorbing what had just happened.
He'd done this to his friend...and he couldn't even comfort her.
It was too late for that. Far too late.
Jack squeezed his eyes shut.
When he opened them, the scene was very different indeed. Instead of the bright, cold hospital walls, Jack was standing in a dark bedroom. It was relatively large, with lilac walls decorated with tiny black stars. Just as he was wondering where he was, Jack spotted Pitch sitting on the edge of the bed, speaking to a small girl.
"Oh?" Pitch shifted so he was sitting more comfortably, "You never speak of your parents."
Lucy looked away. She spoke in a flat voice, "They're dead."
She might as well have hit Jack in the chest with a steamhammer.
"...Oh."
Lucy spoke after a second, "They were both university professors. My mom taught chemistry while my dad taught philosophy."
"Ah," Pitch nodded, "And here I thought your love for books was entirely coincidental."
Lucy cracked a smile, "Nah." She played with a lock of her hair, which was now a couple of inches past her shoulders. "They were always busy, so they never had much time for me." She hesitated, then looked up to meet Pitch's gold orbs. The Nightmare King recognized that expression: she was debating whether to tell him what she was thinking\feeling or not.
He shrugged, trying not to appear too uncaring, "You may tell me or not. I won't force you if you'd prefer to keep it to yourself."
Lucy blinked, then looked away. There was a long silence in the small room, interrupted only by the faint neighing of Night Mares outside. After around three minutes of censorship, Pitch stood up, "I will see you this evening."
Lucy didn't reply. The Boogeyman ignored the small pain in his chest and walked towards the door.
His pale gray fingers had just brushed the doorknob when Lucy spoke: "They were always busy with lesson planning and stuff."
Pitch glanced back at her.
She stared at the ground as she continued, "...and w-when they died..." Tears filled her eyes, "...I never got to tell them...h-how...how much I loved them." She buried her face in her pillow, and her shoulders began to shake.
Jack felt his heart crack open right there.
"Stop it..." He whispered, "Please, stop..."
"Do you understand now?" Black Ice appeared behind him, smiling that Cheshire Cat grin of his. "While Melinda lived a decent existence with my master, the pain and guilt never stopped eating away at her. And you?" Black Ice made a tsk-tsk sound, "You forgot all about her, and lived a carefree, happy life for years afterwards."
The scene changed, morphing from one to another in a matter of seconds. They all showed Jack in the following years: he was laughing with the kids, making snow days, and hanging out with Molly, like nothing had ever happened.
"Do you see now?" Black Ice dug his fingers into Jack's shoulders, "All this time, you've been killing her on the inside."
Jack hung his head, trying to block out the images. "Stop it!" He shouted, "I don't wanna see anymore!"
Black Ice sniggered, "It's only just beginning."
Jack's screams echoed through the night, unheard by anyone and drenched in fear, pain, and regret.
