I'm so sorry if this is late, but I kinda lost inspiration for a while. I will try and keep to the weekly schedule as much as I can, but no promises. But this story will be finished, I'm not leaving it on a cliffhanger
Enjoy!
Sandy stroked the black horse in front of him, smiling. Behind him, Jack was spinning around in the sand, bored.
"I think it was this way, wasn't it Raven?" The spirit called, stopping and pointing in a direction. The stallion gave a small nod before closing its eyes lazily, enjoying the sandman's strokes.
Luckily, there had been no difficulty getting out of the tunnels, despite Jack's suspicions, and now, as Sandy was introducing himself to Raven, they were deciding what route to take back to the Warren.
"Thanks for the help." Jack called at the horse, resuming his spinning, "Do you remember anything, Sandy?" From the blurred image behind his bangs, the spirit saw Sandy point roughly in the direction he had done. So he was right.
"Come on, Raven!" Jack yelled, stopping his spinning again. Man, it was making him dizzy. The stallion snorted, obviously annoyed that its strokes were getting interrupted. The spirit rolled his eyes, kicking the sand beneath his foot. It was hot and gravelly, and was burning his feet slightly. He didn't know whether he could melt, but now was not a good time to find out.
"I don't like the fact there are no more nightmares…" Jack plunged his sword into the sand. "I feel like something is waiting for us…"
—
"What?!" Pitch hissed at the lone nightmare that was cowering in the corner. He had sent a whole fleet of them to guard the sandman, but this was the only surviving one.
He snarled and yelled in frustration, listening to his voice echo down the cave. Jack Frost was stronger than he thought…much stronger. Now there was only one guardian left in his grasp, and for once he was unsure what move to make next. It was like in a game of chess: each of his moves were stopped by an unseen intruder, stopping him from winning.
For over seventy years Pitch had managed to keep a tight hold of his power quite easily, but now, in less than a week, it was slipping out of the gaps of his fingers. Believers were rising, banishing fear.
But what should he do to stop it?
Obviously, Jack Frost was too powerful for his nightmares, even one of his monsters. The spirit had managed to survive the trap that he had left for him, though only just. Maybe he could use more of those? But Jack Frost would be expecting them now, and could easily break in.
Pitch rubbed his temple, sitting down on the lone chair in the room. One thing was definitely going to happen – Jack Frost would come and try to take the last guardian away from him and win. He could always wait here for the spirit to come, he figured, but would he be scared of the Boogeyman anymore? And how long would it take for him to arrive this time?
No – he needed Jack Frost to arrive as soon as possible, and fight him himself, kill him himself. But how? How could he get an advantage?
"It's obvious!" Pitch yelled happily, standing up again. Was he the Boogeyman or not? He could send the spirit a nightmare – a really bad one – about North in trouble…no, North dead. It was so simple, but so significant!
Jack Frost would then come sprinting in, worried for the guardian, thinking that he was dead, not bothering to be on guard…
Then he would strike with the same sword as last time, killing the spirit once and for all.
"Oh Jack…you're just too predictable…" Pitch laughed, creating a ball of nightmare sand With was glowing dangerously red. A truly great nightmare.
"You!" Pitch snapped at the nightmare that had been forgotten in the corner. The horse galloped towards him, sending his master's excitement.
"Make sure that this goes into Jack Frost before he sleeps. I don't care how, just do it!" He ordered, making the nightmare ball into a smooth arrow. The horse clamped it in its mouth and eagerly took off into the sky, escaping through a hole in the roof. Pitch brushed away the sand trail it had left behind and sat back down on the chair, chuckling. The chuckles soon turned to wild laughter that left the Nightmare King breathless.
Jack Frost will be having bad dreams tonight.
—
"Ready?" Jack asked, spinning on one foot to face the sandman. Sandy gave an enthusiastic thumbs up, patting Raven's neck. Finally, they had found the correct direction to go in, thanks to the Wind, and both guardians were eager to leave; Jack felt like he was going to melt in the dry heat.
"Ready, Rav-" Jack was cut off quickly as something collided into his rib cage, sending him sprawling back a few feet. Stunned, the spirit lay on the sand for a few seconds as a sharp pain erupted on his chest; there had been a unhealthy crack as the creature struck him – a few ribs were broken, by the looks of things.
"What the…" Jack looked up and saw a nightmare standing in front of him with something clamped in its teeth.
"Great…" Jack tried to get up but a hoof made contact with his legs, sending him to the ground once more. With the heat distracting him, he wasn't as fast as he could be.
Another hoof hit him in the chest again, winding him; the spirit suddenly felt his sword get pushed into his hand.
Nightmares don't do that, do they? Jack opened his eyes and saw that his weapon was attached to a small dream-rope, and a few metres away he saw Sandy holding the other end. Unlike Bunny, the sandman had realised quickly that the nightmare was too strong, and he was too weak. Sure, believers were rising, but without the aid of dreams they were still plagued by nightmares at night. The older guardian knew he couldn't help Jack in battle by fighting – he would be useless – but was still trying to help the best way he could.
Luckily, the Nightmare didn't seem to be interested in Sandy anyway; it's red eyes were set for Jack Frost alone. The spirit felt a grin tug at his lips, and he got up slowly, wincing at each stabbing pain.
"Come on, then." He said, grinding his teeth. He clutched the sword harder in his hand. "What do you want?" The nightmare shrieked and ran forward as Jack charged, holding his sword to his side. They clashed violently, Jack stabbing the sword into the horse's side, and the nightmare bringing the spirit to the ground again. The spirit dug the sword deeper into the stallion, twisting it slowly. The nightmare shrieked, collapsing on top of the spirit.
Before its scarlet eyes dulled, however, the nightmare stabbed the arrow into the spirit's neck. Jack froze.
Immediately, a pain stronger than any other burst through his body, making him scream and clutch the small wound. The arrow was no longer stuck in his neck, and he could swear that he could feel something moving beneath his skin, something small and grainy. Sounds around him dulled until they were a low hum: instead one voice made itself known, a voice that the spirit knew and remembered well.
"Let's have some fun, shall we?"
Broken images flashed through his mind, images he couldn't make out – they seemed blurred and distorted, completely unrecognisable.
And then it was over. The pain began to fade along with the images, and Jack found himself staring at a pair of concerned golden eyes. No, not concerned. Afraid.
"Wha…" Jack muttered, unable to get any words out. His voice was raw, like he had been screaming for hours. He coughed, hissing at the pain in his chest, and blinked his eyes rapidly, trying to make sense of what was in front of him. Sandy came more into focus, and the spirit noticed that he was frantically making symbols above his head. Jack closed his eyes again, feeling nauseous, feeling the small wound in his neck.
"What happened?" He managed to croak, moving himself into a sitting position. He could feel Sandy's hands trying to push him down but he ignored them, coughing slightly.
—
Sandy didn't know what to say to the spirit that was sat in front of him, eyes closed in what seemed like defeat. The truth was, he didn't know either.
There had been a battle, he knew that much, between Jack and a nightmare, and the spirit won. But instead of getting up and celebrating, like Sandy thought he would, he seemed to stay frozen in the ground.
Then Jack screamed, and that's when the guardian ran over to where the spirit lay, studying him for any injuries; but nothing could be seen, apart from a small mark on his neck, the size of a needle prick.
But Jack kept screaming, staring out into nothing with glazed eyes, thrashing in the sand. And Sandy was scared. Something was wrong, very wrong, with Jack. The guardian tried to hold his arms down, trying to help the spirit snap out of whatever trance he was in, but nothing helped; Jack's screaming had stopped, replaced by rapid breaths. Sandy didn't know what to do, for one of the rare times in his life. He could only watch as Jack moaned and screamed in the sand, under the glare of the sun.
And then, as quickly as it began, it stopped.
Jack stopped moving entirely, and his eyes slowly slid back into focus. Sandy tried shaking him again, and this time it seemed to help the spirit get pulled back into reality.
So he didn't know what to say, or do, when Jack asked what had happened, because he didn't know himself. But one thing that he did know that it was something bad, and it probably wasn't the end.
—
Jack opened his eyes slowly, shielding them from the setting sun in the sky. A few symbols appeared over Sandy's head, and he tried his hardest to pay attention to them.
"You don't know?" The spirit guessed, and the older guardian nodded sadly. "That's okay…I think we better go, anyway." Sandy shook his head determinedly, pushing Jack back down onto the ground gently.
"You need to rest…I don't like whatever happened to you…" he signed quickly, looking at him with eyes full of worry.
Rest actually sounded very good to Jack. His limbs seemed much heavier than usual, his brain was fogged, and he still felt nauseous. His eyes kept closing from time to time, and a small headache was coming into play. Not to mention that his ribs were now aching painfully, making it hard for him to breathe.
"I'm really fine." Jack forced himself to say, standing up slowly, swaying. Already he could feel a coldness cover his chest, a sign that his broken bones were already beginning to heal.
"Let's just go." Jack said tiredly, climbing up onto Raven. He was originally planning to fly beside the horse as he was missing riding the wind, but now all he wanted to do was to sleep. He felt like he could barely lift his head, let alone fly.
If Sandy noticed the change in behaviour he didn't remark on it, and created a dream cloud beneath him. As the two guardians took off, a voice seemed to follow Jack in the wind, echoing in his mind.
"Let's have some fun, shall we?"
Please review!
I though this was going to be late, but I have managed to finish it. I'm not giving up on this story!