Jack watched as the soul flew to the sky - just as countless others did before it. As it faded away, he couldn't help but wonder where it went. For millennia he'd been comforting them with tales of beautiful afterlives in which they could reunite with family and friends, but the truth was he didn't know. Perhaps the souls he shepherded merely faded from existence after they faded from view.

Jack shook his head and pivoted on his heel. He didn't have time to think of trivial things like that; he had work to-

There was no pull.

Jack blinked and turned in a slow circle waiting for the familiar tugging at his core that would lead him to the next child who needed to be put to rest-

But there was none.

There was no child. No adult. Not a single human being left, he realized. Jack stared at the desecrated land that surrounded him. The Earth had been torn asunder by the humans' last world war decades ago and they'd been struggling to survive ever since, but he'd never thought they'd go extinct.

Jack's staff fell from limp fingers as he collapsed to his knees. Pitch had been wrong, all those millennia ago. Jack didn't break first; the world did. Jack won that bet! If only he could tell Pitch, but Pitch and the rest of the Myths had died out long ago.

North was the first to go. As Christianity was replaced by another religion, Christmas soon became a forgotten tradition and along with that, Santa Clause. Jack had always known North was a child at heart, but when he felt a tug toward the North Pole, he never thought he'd be the one to send North's soul off. When he'd arrived, North was laying on his bed, too weak to even sit up when Jack climbed in through the window. Still, the man had a twinkle in his eye as his soul broke apart and flew heavenward. Jack had wanted to mourn then - but he'd work to do and quickly flew off.

The Tooth Fairy followed shortly after. At first Jack couldn't understand why he felt he had a job at the Tooth Palace, but he quickly learned. The Baby Teeth were children in their own right - all six thousand nine hundred and twenty-one of them - and they were all dying. When the last little Baby Tooth - the original Baby Tooth, Jack's close friend - passed on, her mother quickly followed, tired and heartbroken from tending to her ailing children. Jack had assumed she'd be furious at him for taking them all way, but she merely smiled tiredly and asked him to keep taking care of his teeth. He'd agreed and she followed her children into the sky. He'd wanted to move them all away from the ruins if the palace and give them a proper burial, but guiding all those souls had taken time, and Jack was sorely needed elsewhere in the world.

Sandy was next, and Jack was present at his death only by the most ironic of coincidences. At the time, humans had been going through a phase of population control that had lowered their number quite a bit. That combined with the advancements in medicine meant that Jack hadn't been nearly as busy as he usually was. He'd just finished sending a soul off when he'd noticed Sandy's sandcastle floating overhead, and Jack had decided to take a break from all the death to visit his friend. He found Sandy lying on his back, eyes closed and light quickly fading. Sandy was the only wishing star that still shone even after he fell, but even he had a limit, and it appeared that was it. Jack hadn't been prepared to take a life at that moment and crouched beside Sandy at a loss. The older spirit smiled wryly at Jack's confusion, opened his mouth and actually whispered to Jack that everything would be okay. He was so shocked by the revelation that he found himself frozen as Sandy dimmed out of existence and then shot upward exploding like a firework in the sky. In retrospect, it was just like Sandy to go out with a bang. Shortly after that that the population started booming again, and Jack never had the time to mull over the fact that Sandy could talk.

It was about then that the moon was destroyed - shattered by an impact with a meteor. At the time, the few remaining Myths had wondered what would happen to them, but nothing changed. No sudden loss of power, no one suddenly fading out of existence. The Spirits that were dying continued to die and humans adjusted to the fragmented moon's effect on their ecosystem with new sciences and machines. After while, Jack found himself wondering if there had ever been a Man in the Moon at all. Perhaps he was the one true myth.

Bunny was the last of his friends to die. He was a Pooka to the core, and his lifespan reflected that, but even Pooka weren't immortal. Jack's best friend died of old age nearly a millennium ago. Right up to the end, he was arguing at Jack, commanding him not to give up hope and especially not do something sappy like cry over his death. Arguing at because Jack hadn't said anything back, merely smiling and nodding as the old kangaroo raved at him good-naturedly. Now, Jack wondered if he shouldn't have said something. It was the last time he'd ever see Bunny alive. Up until this point, Jack hadn't had much time to consider it, but now - now he had all the time in the world.

And Jack was alone, completely and utterly alone.

He slammed his fist into the ground as tears began to fall form his eyes, dotting the earth beneath him. He was alone. No purpose. no friends. No family. Nothing to distract him from the torrent of emotions that had been building up inside for eons. He could feel the storm welling up in him. Every thought he'd ever pushed aside. Every time he didn't grieve, every despair he buried, everything he put off in favor of his job was bubbling up to the surface, and Jack felt like it would rip him apart. He had to let it out.

So he screamed.

It was a wordless shout that echoed off the crumbling mountains in the distance and shook the pebbles beneath his feet. It scratched his throat, and hollowed out his lungs. His stomach soon became sore from the effort, and his head grew dizzy but Jack couldn't stop. He'd broken the damn, and now everything inside him was demanding to be released.

So he screamed.

He screamed until his voice was little more than a brittle rasp and he felt empty inside. It was like a void had opened up inside him, yet he still didn't feel any better. At some point night had fallen, draping the world in a darkness only slightly broken by the faint rays of the fractured moon above. Ice spread out from Jack; it seemed that emotions weren't the only thing he released. As far as his eye could see, the world was frozen over.

He was only shocked for a moment before exhaustion took over, and he collapsed fully onto the ground. After a minute, he managed to turn his head so that he could breath, and he stared at his hand through vision that refused to focus.

He was so tired. He'd always been tired, he realized, but he couldn't stop then. He'd had a job to do.

But he didn't have any work anymore...

So it would be okay-

if he slept

just a little...

As Jack closed his eyes, he thought he saw his hand begin to dissolve into little orbs floating heavenward.

...

...

...

...

"Oh, you're finally here Sweettooth, and look at how good his teeth still look! Right, girls?"

"My boy, I am being very happy to finally see you again. Wait until you see new toys I have designed.

"'Bout time ya got 'ere, mate. My wife's been dyin' ta meet ya,"

"Hello Frost Child. Haha still shocked that I can speak, I see,"

"Jack. Jack! Let's play hopscotch! Come on! It's as easy one, two three-"

Alrighty then! So, my finger's slipped and I accidentally wrote an epilogue. Thanks for taking this little journey with me! I've been getting a couple requests to write out a chapter on the origin of Jack Frost the Grim Reaper. How many of you would lke to see how Jack became the Guardian of Death? Review or shoot me a PM to let me hear your thoughts.