Hey everyone! Disclaimer: as usual I don't own any of the characters. Members of the Avengers team will be added in the drabbles as it progresses. Then again this is also classified as a disordered story. Without further ado I present to thee chapter three! *bows and walks away with evil smile* (warning there is some slightly gruesome stuff.)
Thank You BookieAngel for following and I will continue with the story because there is a revelation for a few of the characters that I made up and my fingers are aching to get out.
Pitch 400 years ago
Pitch's malicious laugh echoed throughout the system of caves he was occupying when he heard about Nightlight's feelings and even from here he could feel the Guardians delicious fear for the girl. He cast a glance at the door leading to the room she was sleeping in. The Guardians didn't even suspect it was him who kidnapped Katherine. Eventually he would cast a body that looked like her and throw it in a lake to make it look like she ha drowned and prevent them from continuing the search for her. Then after a while when he needed an advantage he could turn her into a darkling princess and distract them and finally have her as his daughter.
He pushed open the door into the huge cavern and headed to the corner in which she slept. He sat down beside her resting place watching her sleep. He cursed himself inwardly for not being able to cast her into an endless nightmare like he should have done. He let out a sigh and pushed the often stray strand of hair away from her face. For a while he just sat there watching and noticing everything. The way she slowly breathed in and out and the way her confusion and slight fear of the empty dreamscape caused her brow to crease in concentration. Even she didn't know that it was he who captured her and that her Guardians where miles away worrying and fearing for her well-being.
"You will join me eventually Katherine and become my little darkling princess." He whispered gently to her the way only a father could to his sleeping child. "We'll be a family, never without each other"
He placed his forehand on her forehead muttering a few words then got up and left not looking back.
He put six of his most powerful fearling at the door to guard it and ordered every single one to not touch a single hair on her body unless he gave permission to do so. He walked through his caverns deciding what to do with each one as he had just acquired them and would be living in them for who knows how long. He walked into the main cavern looking for the perfect place to put a throne. He found the perfect spot near the back where a large boulder of the blackest ebony stood. He gathered a small group of fearlings that had experience in stone carving and set them to work telling them to make the most sinisert-looking-yet-comfortable throne they could produce.
He headed to another cavern with a natural stone table in the middle where all his maps and designs for ways to destroy the Guardians lay. He ran his hand along the edge of the rough stone looking for something. His hand stopped at a deer hide list, on which, lay the names of all his enemies that had so far escaped his clutches. He placed his finger on Katherine's name allowing the name to be blacked out completely. He gave a grin, his plans will be carried out perfectly or else.
A small noise emanated from the far corner. "Um, sir when will we get the payment you promised us for kidnapping the girl and her beast?"
Pitch looked up at the man glaring daggers at him. The man and his comrades trembled at his gaze. Pitch put on a sugary smile. " Ah, yes your reward. Follow me." He turned around and beckoned them with his hand. The men followed and Pitch couldn't help but smile, their fear was wonderfully empowering.
He lead them down through the maze of caverns father and farther allowing them to get more and more terrified by the fearlings and illusions. At last they reached a large cavern riddled with small holes only big enough to house a man. The leader looked confused. "Sir you promised us two pounds of gold for each of us in exchange for the girl and her beast."
Pitch slowly turned around allowing the weak light from lava pools to make his facial features appear more ghastly than they already were. "I did didn't I. Hmm you see those small alcoves over there?" He pointed to a small group of holes with cell doors on them. "In each of them is Two pounds of gold."
"You never said this was part of the deal" the man in the very back growled trying to intimidate Pitch.
Pitch laughed and a thousand other scratchy, fear-inspiring laughs coming from everywhere.
"Well if I said that later you would be imprisoned you wouldn't have done my dirty work now, would you?"
The men tried to run back to the surface only to be met by a wave of fearlings howling and screeching at them. Only the leader and two others were brave enough to try to run through it. The other two might as well have tried to run through a brick wall. They comically fell plank-like on their backs frozen then went into a spasm of nightmares. Screaming with pain and their loved ones names, tears ran down their face became tinted black. The leader almost made it through with only his face being able to reach the other side only to be torn back by the withered hand of pitch . The leader fought hard trying to make Pitch let him go. Pitch just smirked and tossed him into a cell beside his fellows.
Pitch took a look at his hand which was now a bit less withered. He wiggled and stretched his hand and gave a content smile. "Thank you your fears have been most empowering." He walked towards the surface.
The leader spoke out his hands hitting the cell bars. "You can't do this to us people will search for us and they will find us and i'll see to it that you get hanged or stoned!"
Pitch turned around facing him. "Ah such hope, i'll have to do something about that. I am the Nightmare King boy." He sneered "I can do what I want and you puny people can not kill me nor will they find you and rescue you I'll see that any who do join my fearlings." He procured a fearling and sent it towards the leader. The man howled in pain as the fearling released nightmare upon nightmare and fear upon fear at the man.
Ethan (2 days past)
The fearling that Pitch had sent to torment him was definitely doing it's job. Ethan thought to himself. For the past few days he had had no rest from all the torments placed upon him. He wiped his face dry of the tears he had shed. The creature had brought back memories of things he never wanted to think about. One of them was the murder of of his parents. His Mother being burned upon the stake as a witch even though she was innocent and his Father beaten to death for trying to protect her and give him and his sister time to escape the angry hordes.
He let out a sigh. He could only hope that Mary would be safe from this man's horrible servants and all harm that was out in the world. He should have never taken up the man's offer and left never looking back but of course not he was only human a greedy, caring, intelligent-yet-stupid being. He put his head out the cell door to get a better look at how is group was doing. Two of them were passed out and twisting in agony from torturous nightmares one was awake and looking sincerely angry at something and the other three were looking all around and examining their cells for a way to escape.
The angry looking man, Alfred or as the rest of them called him, Skull Crusher due to his strength leaned out the bars of his cell. "I always thought we would die young, I just never thought it would be in such a hell hole and I believed we would go down in glory." He let out a sigh.
"Nothing is always what we make it up to be Skull. Besides who said we are going to die down here?" I replied my eyes trying to focus on the details of the cavern in the places where lava light didn't reach.
He gave me a skeptical look. "Did you see the way the man looked at us? He couldn't care less if we just rolled over and died right when we were imprisoned." He picked up a small pebble and tossed it into the nearest lava pool.
"At least he's sensible enough to have water brought to us once every day and a half and food every two days. Heck he even imprisoned us in a cavern with some light when he could've put us in a pitch-black cavern." I always tried to look on the bright side which the rest of the group often mocked me for.
"Oh yes because I absolutely love being thirsty almost all the time and given enough food to feed a cat, oh and it gets better! Every time I breath I get the pleasant odor of brine stone to gag on and get hallucinations from! Isn't that just great optimistic leader?" He replied his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Well it could be worse!" I snapped. All of the men had woken by this time from our argument.
"Well sorry, I guess when one is living in hell they must be optimistic."
"Exactly."
Not a word was spoken after that. It was as if a thick blanket of silence had cloaked everything. I could barely hear the frantic breathing of the other men as the fearlings drifted into their cells one-by-one. We knew better than to scream from our previous encounters with them. It would only cause those nasties to get more excited and give even worse nightmares. The biggest problem for him was how long they would all stay sane. Nobody can last forever against terrors so vile. Just then a fearling drifted into the cell giving me the most horrendous smile. I looked into it's eyes so huge and devoid of anything that make it remotely human. It reached out a wispy, black arm and I fell into the black folds of terror, anger, sadness and insanity of the creatures mind-manipulations.
(Nightmare) He was in his cell, the celling was oozing a darkness and cold that seeped into his very bones and poked and prodded his brain searching for his darkest fears, deepest secrets and the fundamental hopes that had kept him optimistic through the times when his motives were questioned by everyone else. Suddenly there was a bright flash of light and a sharp pain in his brain as if it was being stabbed by a spike of the coldest metal in the world right above his eyes. Suddenly his sister appeared in front of him. She was chained to the opposing wall breathing in ragged breaths. Her shirt was missing and back bloodied from the cat-with-nine-tails. Tears carved paths down dirty cheeks and dropped down from her face to mingle with the steaming-crimson-red blood the had pooled around her from cuts along her wrists. She looked towards him with feelings of betrayal evident in her eyes.
He reached out to her and she stretched her leg towards him. In the four foot space they should've been able to touch, and yet they didn't. The room seemed to stretch away from him by a good six feet. He tried to get up and go over to her, but each time he got shoved back down. The harder he struggled against the invisible hands the harder they pushed him down. When it finally felt like his bones would break if he tried one last time he heard his sister let out a bloodcurdling scream, the same type Mother had let out when she was being burned alive at the stake. A large, very-muscular, intimidating man stood in front of her holding the whip in his right hand, it's leather was red with his sisters blood and his left hand rested on a cruel looking dagger with the rusty brown of dried blood along the edges.
"Ethan help me!" she screamed as the whip hit her back.
He struggled doing everything he could to get at her, then the invisible hands let go of him allowing him to reach his sister. When he reached her she was laying on the ground and barely a whisper of breath passed through her lips. He pulled her close only to look into to her eyes to see that the spark of life there was gone. He screamed and screamed and screamed till he could no longer feel his throat. Then she was gone and everything faded into blackness...
I awoke gasping for breath running my hands through my hair trying to tell myself that it was just a nightmare and nothing more. I went to the cell bars and looked out to see the others.
Skull stuck his head out his cell bars and hollered. "Have a nice dream Briar Rose*?"
I gave him a smirk shuddering a bit from the dream, "Yeah, real nice one. Anyone else awake?"
"Yeah all the rest except Sam. He's in a permanent sleep." He shrugged. "Must 'av been the fear from his nightmare. He never handled somethings to well."
I gave a sad nod. Two or three days in (not exactly sure how long I've been out) and one has already bit the dust from fright. " Is his body still in his cell or what?"
"He's over by the lava pools layin' face down. Probably so they can throw him in as quick n' easy clean-up." He gave a sad frown.
I let out a sad sigh. He looked like he had fallen asleep in a weird position, not dead. I looked at the other men and saw that George, Thomas and Jackson were letting the rare emotion of heartfelt loss let tears roll down their face and then there was John who was praying to some god.
As I looked back to Sam's body I saw a tall dark shadow move towards it, then stop right near Sam's head. The shadow solidified to become the accursed Nightmare King as he called himself. He reached down and pressed his hands to the top of Sam's head. Shadows began to gather around his body and cloaked him in darkness. His body began to shake violently and a low, ghastly sound issued through his lips. Then it all stopped and the most eerie thing happened...Sam stood once more, but changed. His skin was black and wispy and as he turned to look at us I saw that his eyes were as yellow as the flames in a fire.
"Help." He croaked. His eyes full of pain and longing... for what to be dead again? "Help...me." He reached toward us. "Help...me...please." He walked towards us, towards me till he was but a hairs breadth from my face. I wanted to help him, I really did. Though how can one behind bars of lead save the newly risen dead who were once a dearest friend?
I shook my head and in a whisper I said. "I wish I could...but dear friend what good am I in a leaden cell with delusions running amok in my head? How do I know that this is not the first step descending into the never ending pit of insanity?"
He looked at me with despair in his eyes and just stood there for a moment without a single word tumbling from his lips like they used to before this madness started. Then he said one word...one word that will, without a doubt, haunt me for the rest of my life. "Goodbye." He turned away and started to walk towards the Nightmare King. That devil was smiling like a maniac, which he was and then some. With his fangs glinting dangerously in the weak lava light he beckoned Sam over with welcoming arms. Sam just kept on walking and I dreading the fact that he should become slave to that creature I tried to avert my eyes but, to no avail. His steps were, most likely the only thing we heard for the next thirty seconds, each foot landing with a dull thud. Then the Nightmare King's face twisted in disgust as it became evident that Sam was not coming towards him. Sam's footfalls became more rapid as he started to run to the lava pool behind the Nightmare King. The moment he reached the lava he dived in like it was a pool of water. His heart-wrenching screams of agony only lasted a couple seconds before the cavern was filled with the thick quietness that death brings when it comes to take the dead. The Nightmare King stood for a bit, looking at the pool thoughtfully then walking away into the utter blackness of the cruel cavern.
Around an hour after the King left stale, ice-cold water with a trace of sulfur was delivered to them to drink. "Oh, wonderful! Whats next on the menu? Maggots!?" Skull said his face screwed up with disgust after taking a sip of it.
"Be quiet you dolt!" Hollered George. "You'll get 'em stirred up!"
Despite the warning and skull being a complete and utter moron continued. "Like they would come on their own! They follow their stupid Master's commands!" He then waved a rude gesture towards George.
As one would assume Skull was wrong or at least the Nightmare King had heard him because soon the light from the lava pools were dampened by the amount of fearlings that had appeared out of the shadows, and as one they crashed through the bars entering our mind in the most agonizing ways. The high-pitched, little-girl like screams of grown men echoed making my ears hurt like the devil and I was no exception.
The dream began were the last one ended…
Her body was so cold. She was my responsibility and I had let her get killed. The room began to spin faster and faster till it felt like my empty stomach was going to come out through my body. I closed my eyes and held tighter to little Mary's body then the spinning stopped. I tentatively opened my eyes afraid to see what hell might be awaiting me and I saw that I wasn't the only one holding her, My long-dead mother was holding onto her too.
"Mother? Is that truly you?" I reached out to her seeking reassurance.
She looked up at me with blood red tears etching rivers on her face. How could you Ethan? I trusted you to look after her. Your Father died for both of you, how could you dishonor such a sacrifice?"
"I-I-I'm sorry Mother. I failed you." I looked down in shame.
She started to go on a rant. " I trusted you. Your Father trusted you. She trusted you. What did our, no my, Rosemary do to you? She didn't deserve this! You're the worst big brother in history! You're the worst Son in history, no never mind you are no longer my Son! I disown you!"
"Mother, Mother, Mother please! I didn't mean for this to happen to her! Please! I'm so sorry!"
"I hate you go burn in Hell!" She yelled.
I reached out to touch her once more before she might get up to leave. Only if I knew that my touch would burn her! Flames of purple, red, gold and white erupted from the place where our skin touched. I tried to pull back but I couldn't for the life of me! I pulled her into a huge allowing the flames to race all across her body. She struggled, kicking, punching, biting and screaming in such a way that caused tears to course down my face. I held her till she was but a blackened skeleton.
"I'm so sorry..." I sobbed tears etching rivers into my face.
I screamed like I did for Mary. I was terrified, I had killed my Mother on purpose and I for some sick, twisted reason I liked doing it…
I woke up shaking badly with an inner coldness I couldn't banish. I felt like the will to live was slowly slipping away along with my sanity. I looked over to the lava pools to see George and Thomas bound up like slaves. Both had fearlings behind them standing guard, then the fearlings forced the two up from their sitting position leading them over to another cavern. Fifteen minutes later there were screams of bloody murder issuing from there and the maniacal laughter of the King. Then half-an-hour later a new type of fearling came back that looked like a black horse made of sand with eyes the same color that Sam's were after changing. The King strode out looking confident and very pleased with himself. We didn't have to be told what happened to George and Thomas to know what happened to them.
He spoke to the two fearlings that had acted guard to George and Thomas and directed them to the two cells that held John and Jack. Jack being the stubborn teenager tried to fight the fearlings but to no avail. John was the one given to the King first who placed his hands on his shoulders. Fearlings swirled around him till we could see nothing and hear muffled screams, when the fearlings dispersed there was nothing left of John and then the same thing happened to Jack. I cried all through the whole thing and, ashamed of my tears was I not for to lose three of my closest friends within such short time would weigh heavily upon any man and then to bear such gruesome sights in reality and dream adds even more upon that load.
He turned smiling to Skull in I. "Don't worry I have something special planned for you two." He gave us an evil grin then the world faded into blackness.
When I awoke Skull and I were chained to a wall without our shirts. I shivered from the exposure to the cold. The cell that we were in now in was just the same as our old cells except two times bigger.
"Do you know what's happening to us Ethan?" Skull whispered.
"No, but I don't want to think about it so be quiet."
"Ok"
The King walked in just after skull said his last word. "Hello Ethan and Skull. Ready to be changed?"
"Why are you doing this to us?" I asked him.
"Well being my age you do get terribly bored and think of new ways to win important battles." He paused to read our expressions then called out for something causing a creature to be lead into the cell. "This part will only hurt a bit. Oh, real quick." He ran a knife across our chests and left.
I focused on the stinging of the cut and felt warm blood creep across my abdomen. The creature raced towards Skull and started to lick the wound greedily then bite deep into his neck. Skull let out a scream and thrashed in his chains. I was Silent with fear. It was as if all my limbs no longer were in my control. The creature drained him of his blood leaving his face as pale as snow. The creature looked around greedily for more with it's eyes landing upon me.
I squirmed about letting out yelps of pain when the creature dug it's tongue deep into to the cut and through my haze I saw Skull get dragged away. I tried to think what they might do to him only to have that interupted by the awful pain in my neck from the creature biting it. It's such a funny feeling having your blood sucked out, like water that you so desperately want to stop leaking because without it you feel like a bit of you was taken away then you feel weak and so tired and tingly.
When I awoke I was strapped to a table with the Nightmare King standing above me. He placed his hands on my heart and then fearlings began to curl around my limbs. It felt like all the bad things that I had ever done were coming to the surface and engulfing me in a tsunami. My memories began to slip away like quicksilver and I could feel myself becoming more and more inhuman by the second till the darkness consumed me with such a ferocity I knew that it wouldn't give me up easily...
I awoke in a small room with a bleeding girl chained to the wall. I didn't know my name or who I or the girl was or where this place was. I only knew that I was hungry and it was the girl who was causing my stomach to rumble, or more specifically her blood and fear. By instinct I went and fed upon her as naturally as one might sip water form a hole in a water pouch leaving nothing but a withered black creature that floated lazily around the room. Then a man came in, he was tall with grey skin and spiked black hair.
He looked at me with old golden eyes offering me a hand. He said gently "Ethan, my dear creature come with me we have a lot to catch up on."
Hey everyone thanks for reading and reviews are greatly appreciated! Thanx Dude for reading and * Bair Rose is sleeping beauty. Let me know if there is anything that you guys might want to read in the upcoming chp. Till the next chapter bye!