I do not own the Nightmare Before Christmas. Anne is the only character I'll will hold a copywrite to.

I've decided to attempt to keep to an update schedule of one chapter every week, posted either Wednesday or Saturday to give me some writer's block elbow room.

I'm starting to get into the rythmn of how I want this story to go so there likely won't many super long chapters like the previous ones (maybe a few every once in a while), most will be about this length or shorter depending on what's happening.

Just a friendly warning for this chapter. You're going to want to make assumptions after reading this. DON'T. Things are likely not how you think they are. I would still love to hear your theories though. Reviews are a writer's fuel.

Chapter 4

Awake

When I was five my family was in an accident. My parents were both fine, which is lucky since my mom was pregnant with the twins at the time. They were okay though. But I was unbuckled and climbing over the backseat to get a bottle of water when another car t-boned us.

Mom and I were admitted to the hospital. My mother was released soon but I had a concussion, so that led to some tests.

That's when they found the crystals in my brain.

My amygdalae were slowly calcifying because of a genetic disease I had, completely blocking my flight or fight response. We never would have found it if I hadn't needed an MRI.

Lovely opportunity for my parents to break the news that I was adopted, because the disease didn't come from either of them. I suppose I would have been mad if I was any older, but come on! I was six. It never even really mattered to me anyway. They were my parents. My real parents.

And I was their real daughter…

The disease was more a disorder than anything. It wasn't really dangerous to me directly. Sure I made my father bald at 40 and my mom start dying her hair at 38 due to my hair-raising antics. Hair-raising? Heh? Never mind.

But to give them credit, it's very hard to protect a kid who's literally not able to be afraid of anything. Even discipline. But they learned how to do it. Not sure how exactly, but they had to put extra effort into teaching me what was safe and what wasn't. Other times I had to figure it out myself from a broken arm or bruised eye.

So here's a question I pose to myself (or anyone else who shouldn't be reading this diary).

How does someone who hasn't felt fear in over ten years react to a sudden overflow of absolute irrational terror and panic? Like a giant water dam breaking and pouring into a tiny glass?

Not well.

She couldn't even remember what happened. It was like waking up from a bad dream over and over and over again until she could no longer remember if there was a reality to wake up to in the first place.

This time she woke up again when her foot crashed against a tree root that was concealed under a wet pile of dull red and orange leaves. She shouted half in surprise and half in pain as she tumbled down the side of a short hill. It wasn't a very fast trip but it was enough to add to her panic before she came to a gradual stop at the bottom.

Anna cried harder as she pulled herself over to the nearest tree and propped up against it. She pulled her knees close and tried to bury her head in her arms as she sobbed. That didn't do much since she could see around the bones in her arm. Her foot hurt badly too. She wasn't sure if she could walk…or run… But she didn't want to check it. That would require looking.

What was happening? What happened to her? She wasn't herself anymore! This wasn't her. She didn't feel like herself. Her hands were not her hands.

She tried to remember what had happened.

What happened?!

She was in a graveyard. Why was she laying in a graveyard?

There was a tombstone with her name on it.

That made her confused. Everything made her confused.

Then there was a voice that was somehow familiar.

Anna looked up to see something. She couldn't put what she was seeing to words before but she could now.

A skeleton. A walking, talking, alive skeleton.

"Like me? Just like my dreams…." She thought.

….What dreams?

"It's you." She wasn't sure if she had actually said that.

She squeezed her eyes shut so hard that a slight creaking sound was heard.

It…He looked surprised to see her. Maybe. He didn't feel dangerous but at the same time she was just terrified. She didn't know why.

"He asked my name. I don't remember if he told me his. I didn't speak. What was my name?" she thought.

What was her name?

What was her name?

"What was my name?!"

Something she didn't think she could ever explain can up from deep inside her. From her soul. From the deepest part of her being. But she pushed it down before she exploded.

She needed to remember!

Anna.

"My name was Anna. My name is Anna Grisholme. I'm sixteen now. My birthday is on Halloween. I have a brother and sister. My favorite color is purple. I can't feel fear. I can't. I can't…feel fear."

"Then I can't be Anna. I'm afraid. Anna isn't afraid so I can't be her."

She wept harder. "Then who am I?"

"I am Annalise Grisholme," she sniffled before she realized she had even said anything. She wasn't sure that was the truth but it felt right so she tried again, "I am Anna. I am Annalise Grisholme."

Her voice was shaky and didn't quite feel like her own. It was a little hollow sounding. But it was still familiar. More familiar than the dark woods with the dizzying spiral patterned ground she was sitting on. Anna latched on to the inkling of familiarity and took a breath she didn't feel like she physically needed, her mind still reeling from the influx of emotion. The breath was helpful. Something she could control at least.

"My name is Anna." she murmured with a sob.

The skeleton had asked her what her name is but she couldn't remember if she answered.

She ran.

Anna just ran. Why? She didn't even remember standing up. One second she was looking up at a strange creature, the next she was running faster than she ever had before. She was stumbling and losing her balance the whole time. Everything felt off. She didn't know what she was running toward but she was suddenly in a forest. She never looked back to see if that Jack was chasing her.

Jack? How did she know what his name was? Did he tell her? Who is he?

"T-too many questions," she whispered, "Where am I?!"

She didn't get an answer.

She raised her head and stared at her hands. Bone. She was completely bone, not a hint of flesh anywhere. She had hair though, but it wasn't her long thick black hair. It was still black but it felt unevenly cropped short, with messy burnt ends.

She may have been wearing a dress before (before what?) but all that was left was a black charred rag that was barely holding itself together. The running hadn't helped.

She pulled her legs in closer, crying out at the pain the action caused. She forced herself to look. A couple bones on her ankle looked out of place but when she touched them, it just hurt more.

"Where am I?" She asked again. That exploding feeling was creeping its way up again.

"Where am I?" Louder.

"Please!" she cried, "I don't know where I am. I want to go home!" she moaned again.

She couldn't spare a moment to care about being a skeleton that's somehow alive. Not now. She just had to go home.

But where's home?

"I want to go home! I don't know where I am!" she screamed this time. "I DON'T KNOW WHERE I AM!"

That feeling inside finally broke.

A screamed ripped its way through the trees.

It wasn't a fearful scream. This was painful. Frustrated. She wanted to know what happened. Why couldn't she remember what she wanted to? Why was she afraid?

She was alone in a strange world where the sun was orange and had a face; where the dirt and dust naturally settled into an odd swirl pattern; where the cold air smelt lightly of rotten flesh, wet leaves, and pumpkin spice; where strange creatures suddenly showed up as if they weren't a figment of the human imagination. And where she was-

Anna just kept screaming long after she should've run out of breath but it just kept coming. And she didn't try stopping it. It was a horrible sound that held all of her pain and confusion.

All her sorrow.

She screeched louder than thought possible but her throat never got sore. She cried the whole time but she never felt a single tear. She had a broken heart but she didn't feel it pounding in her ears.

She dug her long pale white fingers into the moist dirt beneath her, ripping into it with fury.

Not once was she sure why exactly she was so scared or angry or sad all at once. Confusion was understandable, as was frustration.

It sounds unbelievable but she screamed for two straight hours without stopping. Easy to do when one doesn't need to breathe. It seemed so much shorter. Eventually, she couldn't hear herself anymore. She must have stopped sometime then, trailing off into silent sobs.

Never has silence been more deafening.

It was brighter. The sun was higher in the sky and at just the right angle to shin straight into her eyes with its dull orange light.

She squinted and exhaustedly reached up to feel around her eye only to find nothing but smooth bone. She didn't even have eyeballs. If she was completely a skeleton why should her face be able to move like muscle?

She shakily got up, using the tree as support, and winced when she put pressure on her injured foot. It would hurt to walk but she needed to do something and walking seemed like a good start. Pain could be a good distraction.

She attempted to take a step only to misjudge how much effort it would take to move a fleshless lightweight leg and lost her balance. The nonexistent air got knocked out of her ribcage when she fell on her face.

A cough racked her chest and she whimpered. She was tempted to tell herself to stop being a baby but she wasn't sure she could take any kind of negative criticism from anyone, not even herself.

Somewhere in the rational part of her mind, two sides tore at her. One on hand, this all had to be a dream. On the other, it couldn't be a dream. Everything was too real and unreal all at the same time.

Anna let herself cry a little as she pushed herself up to her knees. Using another tree as support she managed to stand up again, a little more steadily. Apparently, walking as a literal stick figure was similar to learning to roller skate for the first time.

She shut her eyes and shook her head before she could ask why she knew what roller skating was.

With that she started moving, stumbling from tree to tree as she slowly practiced walking. She wasn't sure where she was going. She just started walking, not caring that she was lost.

There were no markers in the forest to tell her where she was going. All she could do was attempt to go in a straight line, keeping the sun in more or less one place to her right.

A small crowd had gathered anxiously at the gate to the Hinterlands. They were waiting for Jack to come back with the new skeleton in hand. There wasn't a search party though. There were very few in town who were willing to go very deep into those dark woods.

The monster had run away like the hell hound themselves were snapping at their heels. Jack himself told them he was very surprised when the monster bolted away from him in the graveyard.

She seemed remarkably calm at first, even having a small conversation with him for a minute before Jack turned around to look toward the cemetery entrance where the small welcoming committee was approaching.

When Jack had turned around, the skeleton's was shaking and staring at nothing in particular. She did even seem to see the other monsters that were walking up. Then she ran, leaping over her tombstone and scrambling away madly.

Jack could sense that she wasn't afraid of anything in particular but nevertheless an intense fear suddenly washed over her and she didn't seem able to control it.

That led to the current, rather frustrating, situation of Jack searching the Hinterlands for the runaway.

After a while, the Mayor managed to convince most of the monsters to go wait back in town for news and as the early morning stretched on the crowd slowly shrank. Intense curiosity has its limit when monsters have spent a whole twenty-four hours jumping between time-zones scaring humans between sundown and midnight.

It wasn't long before only Dr. Finklestein, Sally, the Mayor, the Who, and the Head Witches were left waiting. The Wind was whistling through the branches helping Jack search the forest.

Sally stood up from her seat on the stone wall as Jack eventually emerged from the woods empty handed.

"No luck Jack?" the Mayor said.

Jack shook his head and leaned against the black-iron gate. "She doesn't want to be found. Not yet anyway."

"Oh, poor dear must be so confused." Helgamine said, dropping her witchy attitude for a split second.

"Most are," Jack noted.

A couple leaves rustled and twisted up into the air as the Wind picked them up and sent them flying.

"I found her."

"Splendid!" Jack said, standing straight, "Where is she?"

"Making her way here from deep in the forest. The Hinterlands shifted around after she entered and so she's deeper than she may think. But she seems to have enough common sense now to keep walking in a straight line." The Wind paused for a moment, obviously wondering if it should mention something.

"Is something wrong?" Jack asked.

"…I would suggest you let her be and let her come into town on her own time. She seems able to center herself rather quickly, for a skeleton of course."

Jack's lips quirked upward at the joking jab.

The Wind continued, "However, she was very upset. I just heard her shrieking for the past two hours nonstop while we were searching. That's how I found her."

"Valuable skill," Zeldabourne murmured quietly.

Everyone was straining very hard to hear the wind's quiet voice.

Jack thought quietly for a moment, weighing his options. "Is it safe for her to travel the woods by herself?"

"She may have hurt her right foot but if you like I could watch and make sure no…undesirables…bother her."

"Please do," Jack said shortly.

There was a dull rustle as the wind departed, though some of it stayed nearby, swaying the branches above them. Listening.

"What do we do now?" Sally asked. She didn't know if this was normal. After all, she had never witnessed a new arrival before. Was it common for someone to run off like that? Jack seemed incredibly bothered by it but everyone else looked mildly concerned and curious at most.

"Now?" Jack sighed, somehow sounding dramatic without even trying, "Now we wait. Back to town everyone."

"Humph," the Mayor grunted in agreement, "I supposed there's no point in waiting out here."

There was murmuring but the small group departed from the Hinterlands with little fuss.

Jack let the others walk ahead while he and Sally lagged behind.

"I sense a question on the tip of your tongue my dear," Jack prompted.

"Several actually," admitted Sally, "What was she like? I didn't get a good look at her."

Jack hesitated, "It isn't right for me to make assumptions about our new arrival when none of us even know her yet."

"But you have," Sally smirked. She whispered teasingly, "Don't worry Jack. I won't tell a soul."

Jack laughed, "Very well. She's young. Barely a woman but most definitely still a teenager. She appeared to have died in a fire. Rather violently too if she ended up here." Jack muttered the last sentence with a reserved air.

"What makes you say that?" Sally asked.

"A couple things. For one, her clothing was in burnt tatters and her bones were slightly darkened from soot. There also was distinct burnt smell in the air."

"I see. And the other thing?"

"What?"

"You said there were a couple things. A couple implies two doesn't it?" Sally pointed out.

"Hmm." Jack didn't answer immediately. When he did he took a sharp breath that he didn't need, "Sally…we are…ideas."

Sally looked at him confused.

Jack stalled realizing he was going to explain it badly no matter what he did. "We…exist as the symbols of human fear. And when someone dies…I believe that last single human fear someone has when they die makes them who they become if they are to come to Halloween Town."

"…Are you saying that girl is a skeleton because she died in a fire," Sally guessed. Leave it to Jack to over-complicate things. "Because she was burned to death and lost all her flesh?"

"Yes. I think I am," Jack said.

"But what about Helgamine?"

Helgamine was too far away to hear Jack and Sally's conversation clearly but she did glance back at them at the sound of her name.

"Helgamine told you how she died?" Jack said surprised. That kind of information was usually very private and not many were willing to reveal something like that to others, even after knowing them for years. Or centuries in a few cases. Then again, Helga wasn't one to care about secrets very much.

Jack learned that the hard way.

Sally nodded. "She said she was burned at a stake. Why isn't she a skeleton?"

Because she can't be. That's what Jack wanted to say.

Instead he responded, "She was killed because humans thought she was a witch, which she was by the way. How we died correlates to what we become."

"Oh," Sally said, "Do monsters often run away?"

"It happens often enough," Jack sighed, "Sometimes monsters are simply shocked and they can't move at all. Sometimes they're unconscious and I bring them to the witches or the doctor to look after. But others have been pleasant."

"What did I do when the Doctor first created me?" Sally asked genuinely interested. It was a very confusing time and she didn't remember much of it.

Jack chuckled, "From what I hear you actually hit the good doctor. After that you were mostly very curious."

"Oh dear," Sally giggled.

As they walked into town and everyone dispersed to their homes, Jack stopped to have a word with the gatekeeper.

The gatekeeper looked confused and hesitant but nodded anyways and gave Jack a salute with his wing.

"What was that about?" Sally asked when Jack finally caught up with her.

"Just warning him about the new arrival. If she decides to come into town, he'll be the first person she'll see. I thought it fair to give him a heads up," Jack grinned and popped off his head for a second to toss his skull between his hands.

Sally rolled her eyes but cracked a smile as Jack put himself back together.

They walked the relatively short distance to Skellington Manor. There weren't as many monsters in town square as Sally expected.

Everyone was too tired to stay up waiting for a monster that might show up that day.

Just as they reached the manor's porch steps, the Mayor swiftly jogged up to Jack.

"Jack, may I speak with you for a moment?"

"Of course. I'll be inside shortly Sally."

Sally hesitated and gave the Mayor a strange look. But she nodded politely and turned heel to go into the large house, likely back to her own bed. Either that or to the library to read until she managed to doze off.

Once she was gone the Mayor turned to Jack so fast, his neck clicks skipped a beat as his face switched to the white/stressed side.

The two monsters stared at each other for a minute, waiting for the other to make the first move.

"What are you going to do Jack?!" the Mayor hissed.

"Mayor please! Lower your voice," Jack hissed back, "I'll figure out something." Jack sighed sharply and sat down on the steps, leaning his head in his hand as if to nurse a skullache.

"Surely you know what this means? By Halloween man! You're the one who told me what this would mean. That new skeleton it's—."

"She," Jack corrected sharply. Everything about him seemed 'sharp' at the moment. His voice. His temperament. His worry. He stared at the cobblestone beneath his feet, seeing memories of times gone long by.

"She. She's your-," the Mayor flailed his arms a bit unnecessarily, almost hitting Jack's shoulder.

"I know!" Jack voice broke for a split second before he lowered his voice. There was a trace of guilt in his tone, "I know Shadix."

The Mayor was quiet. It was rare when someone used his real name, especially Jack.

"What do you need me to do?" he asked with some level of finality. "You made the law. Everyone will expecting you for obvious reasons."

"But you can grant exceptions. I need time to figure things out. And I can't do that if I have to mentor her…immediately."

"Everyone will be suspicious that you're not following your own law. Even if I say you shouldn't. Especially if I say so…" the Mayor trialed off on that last part.

"Please Mayor."

The Mayor hesitated but nodded. His face was still his sad one. Or stressed, however one saw it.

"Everyone will find out eventually," the Mayor said, "And you haven't even told me the whole story!"

"Or Finklestein if that makes you feel better," Jack said.

"Marginally. However, my head isn't turning."

"Ah." Jack chuckled at the sarcasm, "Mayor, I just need…time."

"You've had nearly two thousand years Jack!" the Mayor said in panic.

"19 hundred at most," Jack said sullenly.

"With all due respect, Your Majesty," the Mayor said nervously. Even if he and Jack were friends, angering Jack was not a good move, "This is …uh… procrastination…is somewhat of a…coward's way out."

"And how will everyone react when I spring this on them without giving us all time to adjust, especially the girl? Not sure what I'm going to tell Sally."

Jack locked eyes with the Mayor's, but not for the first time the height different made it uncomfortable, even with Jack sitting down.

The Mayor made a displeased grunt but looked down submissively.

"It's your problem Jack. I'll help in whatever way I can."

Jack nodded gratefully and forced a grin that didn't quite reach his eye sockets.

"Thank you Mayor."

The Mayor mumbled a 'you're welcome' before straightening his top hat and turning away.

"Just be careful Jack," he said before departing down the street toward his house. "It might get worse the longer you try to hide."