I'm baaaaack~!

I told you I'd be back— no matter how long it took! :)

So uh... yeah. Life kinda got in the way. I had a full-blown breakdown and took a year off of school, yadda yadda yadda, and now I'm back in the saddle!

I hope this chapter was worth the wait, and that you stick around for the rest of this fic! :)

Also, I apologize in advance for my description of Sadie's appearance. In hindsight, it gives off big My Immortal vibes, but the intention is for her to have a bit of an alt-esque style with some ? ゚マᄏ✨? ᄌマ ? to it, so keep that in mind. Also, make main characters Not Skinny™ 2k22 (Sadie is chubby bc plus-sized rights.)

WARNING: there is a brief recollection of a pretty gruesome nightmare in this chapter. The text formatting will change when it starts, so skip it when you hit it if you need to.


Chapter Four: Seeing is Believing

"Listen, buddy. I don't know what the fuck you are, just get out of my fucking house. I won't call the cops if you just leave and never bother me again." she replied sternly, glaring at him as she tried to look as menacing as she possibly could, yet internally her heart was racing with adrenaline and anxiety.

Pitch took in the appearance of his captor. A human, of course. No apparent age, but was definitely on the younger side of adulthood. A female, about 5'10, with hair that was tied back except for the straight-cut bangs covering her forehead and the small side bangs that weren't tied back, framing her face. At the middle part in her hair, the right half was dyed an unnaturally dark shade of black, the left a contrasting vibrant coral, almost neon peach color. She wore a baggy black t-shirt and gray plaid pajama pants, obviously not dressed for company– spirit or mortal.

"But...what is this 'covid' you spoke of?" Drawled the spirit, referencing her previous comment from earlier in their altercation.

Sadie has just witnessed someone break into her house and then break out of zip-tie bonds, turning into a cloud of glittery black dust. At this point, the thing in front of her not knowing about a worldwide pandemic was the least of her problems. "Coronavirus. Also known as COVID-19. Highly-infectious respiratory virus. Started out in China, and by the time it had already taken over an area of the Pacific Northwest, states were shutting down."

"...god." he gasped as his brain made all the connections in real-time. No wonder he had garnered the strength to escape his lair-turned-prison. A worldwide pandemic would have made fear spike astronomically across the globe.

"Okay, I answered your question, now get the hell out." Sadie gestured the end of her bat towards the still-open window. "–I don't know if this is some weird stress-induced dream, or if you're a demon or something, but if I'm not dreaming: know that I watch Supernatural and Buzzfeed Unsolved, so I know how to kick your ass right back to hell."

"Oh, no," Pitch smirked at her confidence. Quite a brave human for taking on what she thought was a demon. But no, he was much worse. "I'm no mere demon. I'm the Boogeyman."

"Oh, so this is a lucid dream!" she exclaimed in exasperation "and my mind decided to concoct a physical form for a fictional being that looks like Benedict Cumberbatch if he was a twink who worked at Hot Topic! Fantastic."

"This isn't a dream," he responded nonchalantly, watching as the human standing before him spiraled as she realized this.

She looked towards the clock. She had read that if you ever needed to see if you were dreaming or not, if there was a clock in your dream, to look at it, look away, and look back. If it wasn't the same time, it was a dream. She glanced over— 9:45.

Her eyes turned back to Pitch, then immediately back to the clock—

9:45.

"Holy shit."

"Language."

Sadie inched closer, bat still in hand and at the ready. "So, if you're real, and are who you say you are: still– what the fuck are you doing in my house?!"

"I suppose there's no way I can talk myself out of this one." he sighed, "I have been...essentially captive by my own associates since ...what year is it?"

"2020. The worst year in recent history."

"...eight years, then." He paused momentarily, taking in the information. He had been in a living hell for nearly a decade. A decade was nothing for spirits such as himself, but it would be a long time for anyone when under constant torment. "I escaped them and tried to get as far as I could from them before they found me. I thought I could mask my essence under the fear of someone else, and essentially camouflage myself. This was the nearest place I could find."

Sadie's grip on the bat loosened. He seemed …genuine? Somehow? Jesus, was she pitying her own home invader?! She was obviously skeptical of it at first, but from the little interaction they had thus far, she could already tell he was a dick. And it took a lot for a pretentious prick like him to swallow their pride like that, and he practically looked like explaining himself was physically painful.

Fuck it– she was going to give the emotionally constipated Homestuck cosplayer before her a chance.

"If you are who you say you are...what's the worst nightmare I've ever had." She replied, her question more of a demand than an inquisition.

Pitch gave an owlish blink to her request. "Pardon?"

"What's the worst nightmare I've ever had?" Sadie repeated, crossing her arms defensively as she waited for him to prove himself.

The man paused, focusing on the girl. She hadn't been in this house yet, that was for sure. At least over 10…

Green grass.

A family home. It was rural, but not a farm.

A girl running, only to stumble face-first into the luscious field of leaf-green plant life– allowing her assailant to catch up with her.

A faceless figure with an old red can of gasoline, stomping menacingly toward her.

The girl screams.

She pleads. She begs.

She is doused in gasoline.

The figure pulls the match from a hoodie pocket, clicking it so a small amber flame erupts from it.

She pleads. She begs.

He throws it at her.

The girl screams.

He blinked, returning from his momentary vision. "Your father hunted you down and doused you with gasoline, and lit you on fire. You were watching flames take over your vision before you woke up. You were….twelve, thirteen?" His response was paired with a deadpan expression. "Frankly, I don't even know why it played out like that. I send the nightmares, but I don't control what they're abo–"

The bat dropped to the floor with a loud thunk, the girl staring at him with a dropped jaw and wide eyes. "What. the FUCK." she said, practically yelling by the end of her sentence, staring into the distance as she tried to process that information.

"...so you're literally the boogeyman? Like, for real?"

"Yes."

"...and you're essentially the embodiment of fear and nightmares?"

"More or less. Moreso the controller and creator than simply the embodiment. I am the bringer of nightmares, the symbol of fear."

"First off–" she punched him somewhat hard in the arm, causing the other to let out a soft moan of "ow", buckling slightly, but he does not fall. Okay, his powers were somewhat working, but the supernatural healing and pain management abilities were still absent. "That's for the marathon of nightmares I get every finals week, asswipe." the girl spat.

"—Second off, I now know why you ended up here."

Before Pitch could even voice the question, Sadie held her arms out wide in grandiose fashion before announcing: "I'm the biggest pussy to ever exist! I'm afraid of almost everything!" She laughed, almost hysterically. "Spiders, heights, failure, rejection, being yelled at, social interaction in general, confrontation, commitment, public embarrassment, death, the questionable existence of an afterlife, the unknown. Y'know, the usual!"

"–I'm also a hardcore hypochondriac. I have ADHD, depression, a touch of the 'tism, my anxiety is through the roof just about every other day, and I have an existential crisis about once a month or so. I must be a fucking dream for you work-wise. I'm the all-you-can-eat Golden Corral buffet of fear and anxiety, baby!"

Frankly, Pitch was taken aback by her enthusiasm and nonchalant attitude toward the topic. "...I suppose so."

"Yeah. And my anxiety also sometimes borders on paranoia. I always think that every creak and crack in this house is someone trying to break in."

"...Sorry. I should've kept that all for my therapist. I just...don't exactly have the often opportunity to explain the complex web of the inner machinations of my enigmatic illness-riddled mind that make me a sad excuse of a functioning human being." she drawled, her tone once again sardonic.

"Well, I suppose you were right this time about someone breaking in." He replied, cracking the wryest of smiles and giving a soft chuckle.

A twinge of a genuine smile came to Sadie's face, growing into a mini smirk. "You've got a point, man. You've got a point."

"So... you good, man? I know I basically beat you to a pulp earlier. Need a painkiller?"

"I… I'm not entirely sure if mortal medicine if effective on spirits, but a placebo would suffice regardless."

Sadie sat down on her bed, looking over at the new occupant of her room. "So, what's your backstory?"

"Hmm?" the spirit asked from his spot, sunk into a beanbag chair with an icepack held to the side of his head with one hand.

"What's your lore? What has you breaking into homes in the dead of night? Running from something, it seems, from how frantic you were."

"...your observations are correct. I suppose I was, indeed, running from something."

"Something..." she paused, dramatically raising a brow. "—or someone?"

"Well, I suppose that's an issue of semantics, is it not?" he sighed, "I was running from some... former companions of mine. Associates in my work of spreading fear and inducing nightmares. They had once been my minions, actually, but due to some... unfortunate events... I was betrayed and held captive by them for years. I only just now managed to escape their clutches."

The Nightmare King finally finished his retelling, turning to meet the wide eyes of his human counterpart. "Holy fuck, dude! You got Lion King-ed!"

He gave a pitiable look of sheer confusion. "Lion king–?"

"Like how Scar ends up getting mauled to death by the hyenas that were his henchmen. 'The hunter becomes the hunted' and all that."

"...well, then. I suppose I was."

In hindsight, Sadie would inaccurately state that the two of them began to chat, only for her to interrupt and say "I think this might be the start of a beautiful friendship". (Pitch, logically, would then argue this claim immediately after the words left her mouth: "I had just broken into your home, there is no way in hell you thought we would be friends")

Regardless of who was right, and who was wrong— it was, indeed, the start of a beautiful friendship.


Hope this was worth the wait!

I don't know when you'll hear from me next, but you WILL be hearing from me, I promise you that!

As always: reviews are greatly appreciated, and help motivate me to write— I tend to work harder (and faster) when I have an active audience! :)